By, Philip Mensah

Pentecost University College

phil78menadj@yahoo.com

 

Health care is growing increasingly complex, and most clinical

research focuses on new approaches to diagnosis and treatment. In contrast,

relatively little effort has been targeted at the perfection of operational

systems, which are partly responsible for the well-documented problems with

medical safety. If medicine is to achieve major gains in quality, it must be

transformed, and information technology will play a key part, especially with

respect to safety.

 

In other industries, information technology has made possible what has been

called "mass customization"  the efficient and reliable production of goods

and services according to the highly personalized needs of individual customers.

Computer retailers, for example, now use their Web sites to allow people to

purchase computers built to their exact specifications, which can be shipped

within two days. Medical care is, of course, orders of magnitude more complex

than selling personal computers, and clinicians have always strived to provide

carefully individualized care. However, safe care now requires a degree of

individualization that is becoming unimaginable without computerized decision

support. For example, computer systems can instantaneously identify interactions

among a patient's medications. Even today, more than 600 drugs require

adjustment of doses for multiple levels of renal dysfunction, a task that is

poorly performed by human prescribers without assistance but can be done

accurately by computers. Multiple studies now demonstrate that computer-based

decision support can improve physicians' performance and, in some instances,

patient outcomes.

 

In the past decade, the risk of harm caused by medical care has received

increasing scrutiny. The growing sophistication of computers and software should

allow information technology to play a vital part in reducing that risk — by

streamlining care, catching and correcting errors, assisting with decisions, and

providing feedback on performance. Given the large potential risks and benefits

as well as the costs involved, in this article we analyze what is known about

the role and effect of information technology with respect to safety and

consider the implications for medical care, research, and policy.

Improving Safety with Information Technologies

Technology Trends To Watch