TECHNOLOGYTech effect: Better health care through information technologyPhysicians, health plans and hospitals must get together to implement the technology to improve care, says an Institute of Medicine report. But even those who wrote the report say that's easier said than done.By Tyler Chin, amednews staff. Aug. 13, 2001. Although widely admired abroad as the best in the world, the American health system in reality is a disjointed and inefficient system that can't provide consistently safe and effective care to Americans because it is such a technology backwater, according to the Institute of Medicine. The industry must implement a national information technology infrastructure and use information technologies to improve quality of care, efficiencies and communication between physicians and patients, said the IOM in a report last March titled, "Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century." But the committee did not specify what technologies should be used or who would pay for them. The committee recognized that cost would be a huge barrier that would have to be overcome if the country is to attain the quality of care it envisions -- evidenced-based medicine that uses information technology to help physicians and others deliver safe, effective, patient-centered, timely, efficient and equitable care. Other major hurdles include privacy concerns; lack of standards for coding and exchange of clinical information; and policy, reimbursement and legal issues that discourage physicians from using information technology. "The challenges of applying information technology to health care should not be underestimated," the committee said. "Health care is undoubtedly one of the most, if not the most, complex sector of the economy." Still, the committee urged all health care participants to make a national commitment to fundamentally overhaul the health system, including using technologies to eliminate the use of handwritten clinical notes during the next 10 years.
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Copyright 2001 American Medical Association. All rights reserved.
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