According to Pérez-Stable et al. (2019), as of 2015, 84% of non-federal acute care facilities had access to electronic health records (EHRs), bringing clinical treatment in the United States into the twenty-first century. Most physicians regularly described the switch to EHRs as difficult, as it brought up new difficulties yet opened up a wide range of opportunities for the healthcare industry. In order to identify current practices, limits, criticisms, and a role in reducing health disparities, this paper will examine the body of research that already exists on healthcare information technology.
Pérez-Stable, E. J., Jean-Francois, B., & Aklin, C. F. (2019). Leveraging advances in technology to promote health equity. Medical Care, 57(2), 101-104.
Despite widespread concerns that the new technology would make inequalities worse, the author asserts that “health IT has tremendous potential for promoting health equity for racial and ethnic minorities as well as other disparity populations” (pp. 101). By increasing patient involvement, improving the execution of treatment guidelines, ensuring patient safety, and lowering unfavorable outcomes, health IT instruments like EHRs, patient registries, patient-monitored physical functioning, and clinical decision support (CDS) systems may benefit underrepresented masses’ health. EHRs should serve as a forum for better socioeconomic health factors reporting and utilizing standardized terms and techniques of assessment. The article presents statistics that show how a health maintenance organization system managed its hypertension patients, showing that more than 80% were under control without any disparities, including physicians, patients, and technology. Pérez-Stable et al. (2019) argue that improved clinical care coordination made possible by health IT might boost clinician productivity, lessen duplicate testing and clinician biases, identify therapeutic hazards, and promote fair treatment for marginalized groups.
Solanas, A., Weber, J. H., Bener, A. B., van der Linden, F., & Capilla, R. (2017). Recent advances in healthcare software: Toward context-aware and smart solutions. IEEE Software, 34(6), 36–40.
Solanas et al. (2017) suggest that information and communication technology (ICT) has made way for significant advancements in the healthcare industry. The interest in the field has lately expanded beyond mobile technologies to encompass context-aware and smart technologies due to the phenomenal rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) and associated technologies. These tools are capable of sensing, examining, comprehending, and applying the background of patients. Predictions of expanded capacity for clinical research, lower prices, and better quality have propelled all of these improvements. But Solanas et al. (2017) expressed worry about the fact that past experience has demonstrated that some significant expenditures in healthcare ICT don’t provide the desired results and may even have negative effects. Then they provide evidence to back up this argument, showing how even the implementation of the identical software system by the same manufacturer in two distinct healthcare settings might result in radically different results. Installation is viewed as effective in one establishment but troublesome in the other. This begs the issue of why certain setups of health software fall short of expectations compared to others.
Solanas et al. (2017) express criticism of current healthcare software concerning its users frequently feeling overloaded by the volume of data shown, making it difficult for them to identify and sort through the information. The article provides more developing ideas to address the problem, including comprehensive anatomical models that speed up the examination of patient photos and other data by emphasizing the most intriguing structures and units for diagnosis or therapy. Additionally, there are several automated methods for converting raw input into insights, some of which include machine learning, data mining, and prescriptive analytics. The requirement to validate the intended application of developing information technologies is ultimately expressed by Solanas et al. (2017). For the continued advancement of healthcare information technologies, verification is crucial when assuring premarket quality, certification, and licensing. Therefore, when healthcare software is implemented in particular situations, it is still mandatory to develop procedures and techniques for ongoing certification.
References
Pérez-Stable, E. J., Jean-Francois, B., & Aklin, C. F. (2019). Leveraging advances in technology to promote health equity. Medical Care, 57(2), 101-104.
Solanas, A., Weber, J. H., Bener, A. B., van der Linden, F., & Capilla, R. (2017). Recent advances in healthcare software: Toward context-aware and smart solutions. IEEE Software, 34(6), 36–40.