Technology & Patient Care

The advent of managed health care greatly increased the competitive nature of the health care industry. No longer is it enough to offer low-cost health care, but high-quality care must also go along with the low-cost for health maintenance organizations (HMOs) to remain competitive. The advent of technology plays a vital role in adding value to health care services in two ways. One, it helps lower costs because it improves productivity and efficiency levels. Two, it adds value to health care by enabling a higher level of service to be provided to patients. From the womb to the grave, technology impacts every aspect of modern health care and health care service. One aspect of health care that is being revolutionized by technology is patient records information. As such, many physical tasks are eliminated in the administration of patient health care which are time consuming, difficult to access, and often cumbersome for the health care provider. This analysis will discuss new kinds of technology which are replacing traditional patient “paper charts” in a manner that enables health care providers to offer higher levels of care to the patient.

The patient chart is basically the patient’s health history as well as a pool of personal information about the individual, from date of birth to insurance provider. However, in an effort to cut costs and improve the level of patient care, health

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ctation and transcription costs and a 50 percent decrease in the time clinicians spent creating and reviewing clinical documentation” (CompendiaTM 2). In the past, health care providers were adverse to information technology spending “Industries such as banking and financial services spend as much as 15% of their revenue on IT, while the health care industry spends a meager 1% to 3% (DePompa 1). This is mainly because the competition was not as intensive as it is in the today’s HMO environment. Increased competition refocused health care providers on cost-cutting and technology appeared to be the solution. However, the main goals of health care providers in today’s environment also urge the adoption of information technology in order to remain competitive in an increasingly competitive industry “The greatest IT priorities in the health care industry are upgrading infrastructure (32%), integrating multivendor systems (27%) and reengineering front-office systems to provide better patient care (23%)” (DePompa 2). Electronic patient charting allows for small and geographically disparate health care providers to remain competitive also. Inova Health System in Virginia is one such health care provider that has adopted a comprehens
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2041
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)

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