Healthy Information

Information Technology (or IT) is a term used as an industry but actually it is the use of scanners, computers and softwares as tools for managing information for companies and businesses around the world. Today, many large companies in different industries like education, banking, telecommunication and health care have IT Departments or the MIS (Management Information System). Information Technology is one of the top priorities in a company because it is responsible for processing information, protecting information, storing information, transferring information and retrieving information, access to the information through internet and intranet which all would make a company more productive and efficient.

Health care is defined as the prevention, treatment, and management of illness and the preservation of mental and physical well-being through the services offered by the medical and allied health professions. And to provide these services accurately, productively and efficiently, Information Technology could be applied.

Most of the medical hospitals and medical clinics have their own IT department to provide information management for the data that moves in and out of them. Information from the doctors, nurses, technicians, patients and maintenance personnel must be stored and be ready for retrieving and updating all the time. Basic information like name, address and contact numbers are very important details for medical hospitals and clinics. Some need information about patients' medical background; vices, drugs they have taken, previous diseases, blood type, family doctor, HMO and other medical details. And with the help of IT, these information may be processed easily. The hospital or clinic would not need to call each clinic branch or hospital of a certain patient just to get the approval they need before getting their slip to see the doctor. There would not be any long hours of waiting and the patient would be satisfied for how quickly his or her transaction went.

The average wait time for scheduling appointments for family and specialty practices is on the rise. Healthcare IT can provide the connectivity and access to information in real time, enabling timely scheduling of patient visits. IT can play a very specific role to automate processes and drive efficiency, and thereby "doing the right thing for the patient.

Before, patients would need to go back to the hospital in order for them to get the results of their MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scans, CT (Computerized Axial Tomography) scans and X-ray. Since IT is highly used all over the world, these scans may be sent to the patient through email with the doctor's note attached. This way, there would be less of an inconvenience for both patient and doctor.

Websites of medical hospitals and clinics, can make it easier for everybody to view which doctor they would like to see, may it be an gynecologist, a neurologist, a general physician or a cardiologist. It would provide each and every doctor's clinic hours and general background to be posted and there would be a part of the website where you may be able log-in and reserve the time you want your appointment to be with your chosen doctor. This way the patient can assure himself or herself that they have gotten the right doctor for them and they would not have any regrets. This would truly benefit them on their day to day lives, when they are not capable to going to the hospital to reserve a schedule because they do not have the time.

There are also three legislators looking for a nationwide demonstration project that would use information technology to gather data about how to care for cancer. This project was implemented so that Community Oncology Alliance (COA) may gather oncologists from all over the world to ensure quality cancer care that would also controls costs. Information technology would be able to provide the proper research that they need inorder to accomplish this project.

There is a system that healthcare IT has, they have online diagnostics and statistics about which kind of sickness is more inherited. For example, the flu, colds, rashes, numbness, sore eyes or any kind of sickness. There would be links with regular questions that patients would normally ask when they have to flu, like, "how often do you have to drink biogesic when you have the flu?" will be forgotten and instead of having to ask the doctor personally at the hospital the website would provide that answer. This system is called an Expert System. A medical expert system is co-developed by doctors and software engineers.

Information Technology helps the health care industry in giving faster and efficient quality services for their clients but they should not always be relying to the technology because unlike physical materials like forms and reports on paper, these are not always available. Technical problems may happen, the database may crash, servers are down, no electricity, in short there is no access to the information stored to their databases. They should keep it old school, or in Filipino "Yung dating gawi." They should still keep their information physically, having printed forms and reports that are in folders and arranged in a filing cabinet so that those problems may occur there will always be a backup and it would not cause a panic for everybody. But overall, information technology has truly changed healthcare and will continue to achieve improvements as the years progress.

References:
http://jobsearchtech.about.com/od/careersintechnology/p/ITDefinition.htm
http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/it-can-relieve-bottlenecks-physicians
http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/it-based-demo-project-focus-cancer-care