Computers in Healthcare Delivery

Essay by yngwie35University, Master'sB+, March 2004

download word file, 7 pages 4.7

Presented to the Faculty of the School of Healthcare Administration at University in Partial Fulfillment of

Fulfillment of the requirements

For the Degree of

Bachelors of Healthcare Administration

Abstract

This brief report explores the utilization of computer information systems that support the provision of health services in medical office practices, solo practices, small group practices and other health delivery entities.

Computers in Healthcare Delivery

A few weeks ago, a healthy middle-aged man who was recovering from highly complicated abdominal surgery, was released from South Austin Hospital (SAH) in Austin Texas, a for-profit hospital affiliated with HCA. How did this happen? An increasingly effective use of Information Technology (IT).

As a practicing Registered Nurse, analysis of industry trends, and literature illustrates how until recently, industry behemoths with the market power to dictate change, witnessed a rapid immersion and development of their IT culture. In healthcare, no single organization is so large or influential that it can dictate to the rest of the industry what to do by mere example and expect it to follow; so IT culture has been slower to develop, with advances coming mostly via the trickle down theory.

AAs a point of reference, healthcare organizations typically spend between 3 and 4 percent of their budgeted capital on IT. This is low compared to other industries@ Lang=s editor=s introduction (as cited in Fromberg, 2003). Clinical experience and a review of literature has shown there to exist a number of initiatives which have stoked the IT revolution in American healthcare. Here I turn my essay over to Leland Kaiser, PhD, founder and president of Kaiser Consulting, LLC, and Jeff Goldsmith, PhD, owner and operator of Health Futures, Inc., and their poignant thoughts on AComputers in Healthcare Delivery@: AE-health was Astrangled in its crib,@ snaps Goldsmith. AIt got about...