As Healthcare Industry Gains Competitive Advantage Using IT

Information Technology $as defined by the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), is "the study, design, development, implementation, support or management of computer-based information systems, particularly software applications and computer hardware." IT deals with the use of electronic computers and computer software to convert, store, protect, process, transmit, and securely retrieve information. In simple terms, IT is the use of computers and software to manage information. IT has been helpful to many and is rapidly progressing. Everyday many innovative ideas are produced with IT. As a result, people demand much of IT in industries.


Through the years, IT has been used by different industries to control costs and develop competitiveness. In the financial services industry, for example, the cash management account introduced in the early 1980s used information technology to blur the lines of banking and brokerage, resulting in sustained competitive advantage for the financial services organization that developed this product. In the airline industry, information technology used in reservation systems has helped certain airlines gain competitive advantage.


It's often said that necessity is the mother of invention. Similarly, it can be said that competition is the mother of innovation; but more often than not the healthcare industry has had limited competition. As a result, innovation was focused mostly on the medical instruments, diagnostic equipment, and other technologies.


Concern about the state of the American health care system has reached a slow boil. Health care consistently ranks among the top three issues that the American public wants policymakers to address, and it is increasingly intertwined with growing worries about economic insecurity. High costs, gap-ridden coverage, and unsystematic quality are the health care problems that most concern Americans. Yet most of the policy discussion is focused on the issue of coverage. However, as the healthcare industry changes to emphasize managed care and the development of integrated delivery systems, a different kind of innovation will be rewarded. This innovation will take place in administrative systems, clinical information systems, and other strategic information systems that have the potential to improve the cost and quality of health care and to maintain the health of populations under capitated payment.


To bring about successful business change using information technology, healthcare organizations should avoid simply investing in technology that improves performance of traditional functions. Rather, organizations should ensure that technology works in concert with meaningful changes in organizational functions and processes.


For instance, a few years ago the healthcare industry has set itself to making transactions and processes easier to use—to use current information technology to create meaningful improvements in business functions. It is called as information networks. These networks could have an effect on healthcare delivery similar to the effect of automated teller machine networks on the financial services industry. The transaction volume of healthcare information networks could approximate that of highly sophisticated electronic clearing-house networks that carry billions of financial transactions daily.


Emerging healthcare information networks will be able to take advantage of new public network infrastructure investments that will greatly enhance the ability to communicate and manage information. For example, one large California-based telecommunications organization is investing $16 billion over the next seven years in fiber optic networks that will reach every business and residence in the state. Such a seamless communication network should be able to process all forms of healthcare information, from eligibility verification to the most complex multimedia programming, allowing information to be transmitted virtually anywhere at any time. On a global basis, in the next decade more money will be put into the world's information network infrastructure than in all the years combined since the invention of the telephone.


A highly competitive managed-care environment and a new information network infrastructure will stimulate formation of new forms of electronic commerce. Fueled by the most elementary needs of competition for the most basic market information, the new healthcare information networks will need to connect all participants within the electronic trading community, including purchasers, providers, payers, and patients. This convergence of needs will drive creation of patient-centered information networks that will support horizontal and vertical information integration. To fulfill the needs of the healthcare delivery system, these new patient-centered networks must focus on providing appropriate access to information about patient/provider interactions at all points within the healthcare delivery system. The networks must enable appropriate routing of financial data; data about cost, clinical outcomes, and patient health needs; and all components of the medical record, including images such as X-rays. In addition, such networks must facilitate health maintenance through their ability to deliver educational information, and they must be able to support home health telemetry applications.


Patient-centered information networks will affect the industry in the following four broad areas of human and business interaction:
* Reorganizing work;
* Creating new electronic trading communities and eliminating intermediaries;
* Standardizing processes; and
* Removing time-and-place barriers.


In line to this, CISCO, a company that designs and sells networking and communications technology and services, has developed new services for the healthcare industry. Examples are:
-- Location-based services, allows hospital staff to track mobile equipment and other key assets using Cisco's wireless technology;
-- Nurse Call uses wireless technologies to let patients inform their nurses directly when they need attention or to allow clinicians to engage in direct communications with their mobile colleagues;
-- Patient Monitoring is for monitoring patients remotely and quickly receiving relevant patient information on a mobile device; and
-- Collaborative care uses Cisco's infrastructure and conferencing technologies to dynamically bring together the right people and patient information to improve time to treatment.


In conclusion, IT can help physicians provide the right care at the right time in the right setting. The next revolution in this field is not about medicine; it's about using information to drive patient-centric, safe and efficient care. It's about “connected health.” There are a number of health information technologies that can help. Some - such as supply chain management technologies or online learning capabilities - are used in many industries. Others are more specific to a clinical setting, such as paperless patient records and applications that allow physicians to read x-rays and other records from home. All this innovative technology can help patients and doctors ultimately. And a lot more can be done. The most important result is much more real-time responsiveness from clinical staff - and by speeding up the time to diagnosis and treatment, the quality of care improves. For example, if a patient is trying to call a nurse or physician, the technology allows that call to be received automatically by the intended person, rather than having calls relayed through a nurse's station. It also means cutting down on errors. E-prescriptions, as just one example, are more legible than their handwritten counterparts, and they can also be integrated with online prescription databases, to provide warnings for adverse medication interactions.

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Mr. Ramon Duremdes, Jr.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_technology

Ronald L. Rothenberg "Using information networks for competitive advantage". Healthcare Financial Management. FindArticles.com. 17 Jun, 2009. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3257/is_n1_v49/ai_16359385/