In today’s world technology is evolving fast and so are we as a community. As technology continues to become more integrated into our everyday life, there is also a great emphasis on the inclusion of information technology to improve patient care. The impact of Health Information Technology (HIT) has revolutionised patient care on a global scale. HIT is the application of information technology to healthcare. This refers to the electronics systems that healthcare professionals use to store, share and analyse information regarding healthcare. By using HIT, the time and effort spent managing daily operations and administrative tasks have been reduced, allowing healthcare organisations to focus more on patient treatment and health.
There are several HIT systems available today depending on the needs of an organisation. There’s Medical Practice Management (MPM) that focuses on managing different administrative and clinical aspects of an organisation. Then there is Electronic Health Records (EHR) which focuses on the documentation and storage of a patient’s medical information. Electronic Medical Records (EMR) is another one. Together, these provide a wide range of uses such as medical billing, patient scheduling, E-Prescriptions, etc.
Despite the vast benefits, organisations have been slow in adopting this technology. The hindering factors in such cases could be: the high initial cost required in setup or technical difficulties is adaptation and implementation. Organisations must do proper research and planning before adopting HIT to choose the best fit for them.
MEDITECH is a leading software vendor in the healthcare informatics industry and had formed a partnership with the Northeastern University to integrate technology into nursing education, which includes developing a first-of-its-kind curriculum for disease managers and case managers. Laura Mylott, a Clinical Professor in the School of Nursing from the Northeastern University has stated that the School of Nursing recognised early on that health IT would play an essential role in practice education and its principals and concepts are integrated into both, the undergraduate and graduate nursing curriculum.
Harman Singh