Ict

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IT APPLICATION IN
HEALTH CARE
21
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 4
INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOlOGIES GROWTH ……………………. 5
USING ITs IN THE HEALTH SECTOR ………………………………………………………………………….. 5
USE OF ICTs IN THE HEALTH SECTOR ……………………………………………………………………… 6
ITs IN HEALTH CARE DELIVERY …………………………………………………………………………………. 7
EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES ……………………………………………………………………………………….. 7
BAR CODE TECHNOLOGY AND RADIO-FREQUENCY IDENTIFICATION …………….. 8
CLINICAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM ……………………………………………………………………. 8
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS …………………………………………………………………. 8
INTRODUCTION
In developing countries, preventable diseases and premature deaths still inflict a high toll.
Inequity of access to basic health services affects distinct regions, communities, and social
groups. Under-financing of the health sector in most countries has led to quantitative
deficiencies in service delivery and to growing gaps in facility and equipment upkeep.
Inefficient allocations of scarce resources and lack of coordination among key stakeholders
have made duplication of efforts, overlapping responsibilities, and resource wastage common
and troublesome problems.
Most countries are at some stage of health sector reform, trying to provide expanded and
equitable access to quality services while reducing or at least controlling the rising cost of
healthcare. Health reform processes have many facets and there is no single model being
adopted by all countries. ICTs have the potential to make a major contribution to improving
access and quality of services while containing costs. Improving health involves improving
public health and medical programs designed to provide elective, emergency and more
sanitary living conditions. These in turn ultimately involve massive social and economic
changes, as many health challenges go well beyond the health sector.
The health sector has always relied on technologies. According to WHO, they form the
backbone of the services to prevent, diagnose, and treat illness and disease. ICTs are only one
category of the vast array of technologies that may be of use. Given the right policies,
organization, resources and institutions, ICTs can be powerful tools in the hands of those
working to improve health.
Advances in information and computer technology in the last quarter of the 20th century have
led to the ability to more accurately profile individual health risks, to better understand basic
physiologic and pathologic processes, and to revolutionize diagnosis through new imaging and
scanning technologies. Such technological developments, however, demand that practitioners,
managers and policymakers are more responsible in assessing the appropriateness of new
technologies.
Reliable information and effective communication are crucial elements in public health
practices. The use of appropriate technologies can increase the quality and the reach of both
information and communication. Increased information helps people to improve their own
health. At the same time, social organization help people achieve health through health care
services and engage with and demand a health sector that responds to their priorities and
needs is influenced by wider information and communication processes mediated by ITs.
INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOlOGIES GROWTH
ICTs have proven to be a tremendous accelerator of economic and social progress. The speed
at which ICTs are diffusing has taken many observers by surprise. Interestingly, the developing
countries are ahead of the developed ones in the mobile telephone subscriptions. They account
for two thirds of all subscriptions, corresponding to a mobile penetration rate just short of fifty.
This surge in the usage of mobile phones, internet and related technologies in developing
countries can be very effectively used to provide health services at low cost. The penetration
can also help in provisioning of health care services in remote rural areas where, otherwise,
health care facilities are patchy
.
USING ITs IN THE HEALTH SECTOR
According to WHO the use of ITs in health is not merely about technology, but means to reach
a series of desired outcomes, such as:
•
Health workers making better treatment decision;
•
Hospitals providing higher quality and safer care;
•
People making informed choices about their own health;
•
Governments becoming more responsive to health needs;
•
National and local information systems supporting the development of effective,
efficient and equitable health systems;
•
Policymakers and the public becoming more aware of health risks; and
•
People having better access to the information and knowledge they need for better
health.
USE OF ICTs IN THE HEALTH SECTOR
The use of ITs in the health sector has tended to focus on three broad categories that
incorporate these pillars:
1. improving the functioning of health care system by improving the management of
information and access to that information, including:
•
management of logistics of patient care,
•
administrative systems;
•
patient records; and
•
ordering and billing systems.
2. Improving the delivery of health care through better diagnosis, better mapping of public
health threats, better training and sharing of knowledge among health workers, and
supporting health workers in primary health care, particularly rural health care,
including:
•
Biomedical literature search and retrieval;
•
Continuing professional development of health workers;
•
Telemedicine and remote diagnostic support;
•
Diagnostic imaging;
•
Critical decision support systems;
•
Quality assurance systems; and
•
Disease surveillance and epidemiology.
3. Improving communication about health including improved information flows among
health workers and general public, better opportunities for health promotion and health
communication: and improved feedback on the impact of health services and
interventions, including:
•
Patient information
•
Interactive approaches
•
Media communication
•
Health research, and
•
Advocacy to improve services.
ITs IN HEALTH CARE DELIVERY
Telemedicine improves resource coordination, strengthens urban/rural linkages and
connects remote health staff to centralized health expertise and resources.
Incorporating already existing technology – such as phone or e-mail – into medical
practice and routine consultancies can make a difference.
There is strong potential for e-learning in health as demonstrated by a variety of
successful small projects around the world.
Multiple IT routes can, and are, being used for e-learning in a mixed toolbox approach.
EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES
Telemedicine
Recently a lot of stress is being made on the field of telemedicine which is merger of
advanced telecommunications and computer technologies. Telemedicine is the use of
information and communication technologies to provide and support healthcare services
at distant locations. Telemedicine can give a new model for interaction with the patients
or other important entities such as hospitals, pharmacies, physicians and governmental
agencies. On the other side very advanced telemedicine technologies are on the way
such as telesurgery where robotic instruments will perform the surgery on the basis of
audio and visual data received by the surgeon present at a remote or a distant location
where there it is impossible to move a patient immediately.
M-HEALTH
Advancements in information and communication technologies have paved way for
provision of cost effective e-services to the people around globe. The combination of
such wireless technologies with e-health is known as m-health. In general terms, mhealth
can be defined as “mobile computing, medical sensor, and communications technologies
for healthcare”. The applications include the use of cell phones and other
communications devices to gather health data, delivery of healthcare information to
doctors, researchers, and patients. If also includes real time and direct provision of
health services. It can help improve clinical outcomes, and contributes to better public
health monitoring and education.
BAR
CODE
TECHNOLOGY
AND
RADIO-FREQUENCY
IDENTIFICATION
Barcode technology in healthcare management has involved applications at the point of care.
Bar code technology specifically in health management improves the security, safety and
quality of healthcare. The right treatment is not the only issue but to make sure that the right
treatment is given to right patient at right time. It prevents from potential errors in identifying
or validating a patient. Barcode technology verifies the patient and treatment information by
using a decision support system.
Similarly, Radio-frequency identification tracks patients throughout the hospitals, and links
lab and medication tracking through a wireless communication system. The technology, once
common may serve as an alternative to bar coding
.
CLINICAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM
Clinical decision support system provides doctors nurses and other paramedical staff with real-time diagnostic
of the patients as well as treatment recommendations. Such systems have built in inference engines that a medical
knowledge base and patient data to generate medical advice. As data models have incorporated more semantics
to interact with CDSS a temporal dimension has evolved.
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Telemedicine and e-health offers a way for improving of the standard of healthcare
particularly in the developing world. The developing countries such as Pakistan, where
large portion of population has access to IT can exploit these to give better healthcare
services and education.
Pakistan has a very good human resource in IT and medicine which is working in
Pakistan and abroad especially in developed countries such as England and
NorthAmerica. Government and private sector should work together to take advantage
of such a viable human resource to come up with the solutions of the problems in
healthcare management in our country. Healthcare systems present great opportunities
for improvement by providing better, reliable and secure services to the patients,
physicians, staff and other stake holders within the boundaries of a hospital and also to
distant patients where no physical healthcare infrastructure is available.
Pakistan has a potential to take lead in healthcare management but it is only possible if
the policymakers, decision makers and all stake holders sit together and lay down the
steps and guidelines for an effective healthcare policy. It is very important to identify
strategic objectives and the desired short term and long term goal before start spending
on healthcare projects.
THANKS
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