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Potential Benefits of Improving Technology in Healthcare
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Abstract
Technological advancements in the medical arena have grown rapidly concurrent with technology globally. These advancements have been essential in improving health care. The use of technology in research, diagnosis, and treatment reduces mortality and improves efficiency significantly. This is because it reduces the time required to serve a patient and reduces errors that could result from misinterpretation of hand-written records. There also increases ease of sharing information enabling patients to be treated adequately across the nation. Despite these immense benefits, there are still numerous barriers to full adoption of health information technology. The basis barrier has always been the implementation cost. The federal government has therefore undertaken extraordinary measures to assist health care facilities in the acquisition and implementation of these systems. However, this has not increased the efficacy of HIT effectively. A huge barrier remains in the acceptance of HIT by the medical fraternity. Resistance among physicians stems from the misunderstanding which leads to the perception of these systems as unnecessary interruptions to workflow. It is essential for investment to shift toward educational ventures that will be sustainable in the long-term. To achieve this, this paper proposes an increase in financial aid to medical training institutes to enable them to integrate HIT education in the curriculum for training physicians.

Introduction
Technology in healthcare is a term used to define inventions that are geared towards enhancing research, diagnosis, treatment and recording in the medical sphere. Concurrent with technological advancements globally, there has been a constant rise in the use of technology in healthcare. (Ajami & BagheriTadi, 2013) This is especially consistent in the areas of research, improvements in treatment methods and the establishment of cure as well as diagnostic tools. However, trends have been a bit slower in the day to day integration in hospital scenarios. The current definition of Health Information Technology (HIT) use encompasses the utilization of digital recording, reporting and communications in a hospital scenario. There are massive benefits that can be harnessed from these improvements. The aim of this paper is to analyze the current extent of HIT use in healthcare facilities. (Ajami & BagheriTadi, 2013) This information will be gathered through an extensive literary review. Using the results of the study, potential improvements, especially those that can be achieved through proper legislations will be projected. This will culminate in formulations of recommendations on improvements that legislators should focus with to ensure that the potential is harnessed maximally.
Current Status
The National Center for Policy Analysis estimated that the federal government would save up to 78 billion dollars in health care spending if HIT were implemented maximally. Current estimates are about 162 billion dollars. (Taylor et al., 2005) However, it is also noted that currently, no significant savings have been achieved. This indicates that there is immense potential in the use of HIT, but it is inadequately implemented. According to research sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund in 2009, Blumenthal anticipated that there were only 10% of physicians and 8% of patients using HIT in accessing and providing medical care. This is in contrast with countries such as Australia, New Zealand and the most of Europe where adoptions were between 80% and 100% that year. The United States has thus lagged behind in the implementation of HIT with only about 27% of the hospitals implementing health care systems effectively. (Blumenthal, 2009)
Research has revealed that HIT has numerous positive impacts in health care provision. Apart from saving billions of taxpayers’ money, HIT reforms also reduce mortality rates significantly. This is because these systems result in better and faster treatment methods. HIT allows for linkage of health care information. This regards both sharing of services offered by hospitals as well as the patient information. This means that patients can be able to identify hospitals where they can access certain services faster. On the other hand, it is easier for hospitals to access medical records of patients nationwide. (Thakkar & Davis, 2006) This can allow easier analysis of a patient hospital from an entirely different location ensuring appropriate treatment is issued. Additionally, it is easier to issue billing to insurance agencies, and hence it is easier for hospitals to collect bills enhancing efficiency in operations.
Within hospitals, the use of HIT reduces the time spent in servicing a consumer case. The records are transmitted directly to the physician from the reception and then to the pharmacy or other departments in the hospitals such as admissions. Since the input of information in medical records is more precisely coded, there are minimal errors that could result in misinterpretations of a physician’s entry. Handwritten instructions are also harder to read and decode and this more time consuming. Also, when HIT is used, information is dispatched to the next department before the client gets there which means the service provider can begin packaging the product or preparing for treatment before the client arrives. The use of technology also enhances earlier diagnosis and hence better prevention measures. Use of technology has led to the detection of even minute changes in body functions. Early treatment is always essential in improving the quality of life and chances of full recovery. This is also critical in nursing care. Integrated communications systems in hospital words can alert a nurse when there is a potential life threatening a change in a patient. (Taylor et al., 2005) This reduces the need for frequent personal monitoring and allows the nurse to perform other duties and serve more patients while still monitoring the well-being of all the patients. All these increase efficiency in health care provisions.
While improved technical communications systems allow the nurse to safely spend more time away from the patient without jeopardizing the patient’s health, the is of electronic health records (EHR) actually affords more time for the nurse to cater for the patient. Caring for the patient is primary human and the presence if a nurse will undoubtedly have a good impact on the recovery of the patient. The use of HER reduces the amount of time a nurse requires to keep all the records essential in healthcare. There is more time available for interactions with the patients.
HIT enhances transparency in collecting the medical fee. Through the use of HIT, physicians are provided with tools to code the service provided alongside the time spent on the treatment and therefore they can effectively charge the service offered accurately. This reduces the amount of extreme changes made to institutions for services unrendered.
Due to the increased efficiency when HIT systems are integrated into health care, it is possible to solve numerous other issues concurrently when this factor in emphasized. For example, since the use of HER reduces the tasks for nurses, it means that fewer nurses can cover more workload. This is essential because there is an increasing deficit of health care providers in comparison to the population that has to be served. (Taylor et al., 2005)
Despite the immense benefits, there is resistance towards the use of HIT. The most significant barrier towards these implementations is the cost of application and inadequacy of skilled personnel. The cost of implementing a single CPOE is between 3 and 10 million dollars depending on the previous infrastructural setting of the health facility. It is especially significantly harder for small solo-practitioner enterprises which are the majority service provider in the US to implement these reforms. Despite the enormous capital required to implement the change, only a subtle fraction of this actually goes to the medical facilities. The majority of the advantages goes to the clients. This reduces the incentive for implementation to physicians. The phenomenon is exacerbated by the fact that it requires intense education which is time consuming and expensive to acquire proficiency in the utilization of the resources. (Pennic, 2016)
Despite these challenges, the government retains particular interests in promoting the use of HIT. This is because it is in the interest of the government to ensure the best services are provided to every citizen. So far, the federal government has participated actively in promoting the use of HIT in health facilities. This support is afforded primarily in two ways. The primary role is in policy formulations. Effective government policies must; encourage physicians to use Hit systems, provides means of linking the systems between hospitals as well as regulating the extent of information sharing for the protections of clients privacy. As an extension of policy formulation, the second way in which the legislation can enhance the use of technology is through an issuance of incentives in financial support to encourage the use of HIT. In 2009, the federal government began these efforts by setting aside 29 billion dollars for issuing incentives to healthcare centers to encourage the use of HIT. Through the stimulus bill, the government is even more committed to improving the use of HIT today. There is a current commitment if 787 billion dollars in various projects that are geared to improving the use of technology in healthcare. 20 Billion dollars is directed towards encouraging physicians to use technology in providing services.
Potential Improvements and Their Effects
While immense milestones have been achieved through proper legislations, the vast gaps indicate that there is still room for improvement. So far, the majority of the funds has gone to financing the implementation of HIT systems and encouragement of their use. However, there is still a gap in educative measures which can enhance skilled knowledge in the implementation of HIT. While there are numerous federally promotes seminars which assist physicians in understanding HIT use, there is a limited investment in the advancement of full educational courses.
When the leading education ventures are directed towards seminars, there is a constant gap in knowledge. This method is unsustainable because it means fresh graduates will always leave the educational institutions without proper familiarization with the relevance of HIT in health care provision. This will necessitate more and more seminars which cannot be conducted infinitely. This means that there unless educative measures are enhanced, the present resistance will continue to be witnesses preventing meaningful integration of HIT.
Conclusions and Recommendations
A conclusion of this research recommends an increased funding to medical training institutions towards HIT training. This is in lieu with the sustainability that such a venture would offer to the medical fraternity. The federal government has already committed vast resources towards the infrastructural implementation of HIT. However, even when the systems are fully available, physicians are still resistant to the use. Most of the physicians have a difficult in interacting with the technology because of the difficulty in incorporating clinical language to IT platforms. The medical fraternity thus perceives the developments as unnecessary distractions to typical workflows. The educational efforts provided through seminars and short courses for segments of the medical fraternity are not sustainable in the long run. This is because they are limited to current participants necessitating additional programs.
The introductions of such measures in medical training institutions would, however, solve the challenge conclusively. This is because it would prepare a future workforce that embraces the use of HIT in health care provision. The achievement of these efforts needs, to begin with, the formulation of a curriculum that incorporates the technological language in clinical discourse that would ease the interactions of medical practitioners with the technology. Resources must be availed to these institutions to provide model HIT systems for students practice just as engineering students are provided with necessary machinery for advancement in skills. In the interest of improving public service, it is essentials for legislators to increase funding towards these goals.

References
Ajami, S. & BagheriTadi, T. (2013). Barriers for Adopting Electronic Health Records EHRs by Physicians. Acta Informatica Medica, 21(2), 129. http://dx.doi.org/10.5455/aim.2013.21.129-134
Blumenthal, D. (2009). The Federal Role in Promoting Health Information Technology (1st ed.). New York: The Common Wealth Fund.
Pennic, J. (2016). 4 Barriers to Big Data Analytics in Healthcare Organizations. Hitconsultant.net. Retrieved 30 December 2016, from http://hitconsultant.net/2013/08/09/4-barriers-to-big-data-analytics-in-healthcare-organizations/
Taylor, R., Bower, A., Girosi, F., Bigelow, J., Fonkych, K., & Hillestad, R. (2005). Promoting Health Information Technology: Is There A Case For More-Aggressive Government Action?. Health Affairs, 24(5), 1234-1245. http://dx.doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.24.5.1234
Thakkar, M. & Davis, D. (2006). Risks, Barriers, and Benefits of EHR Systems: A Comparative Study Based on Size of Hospital. NCBI, 3(6).