Question

Please post two paragraphs, one paragraph describing two heathcare problems and how healthcare IT has largely solved them and one paragraph describing two healthcare problems and why healthcare IT has not solved them.

Answer 1

Information technology in healthcare system has become a major advancement. Technology has made healthcare services more effective, efficient, less time consuming and accurate. But still there are few problems that technology can not solve.

Two problems that technology can solve are :

1. Secure data transfer : With globalisation of healthcare system, many a times data containing health information of patients need to be transferred. The pen and paper approach for maintaining and sharing the patient data has many drawbacks. It poses the danger of security breech during the exchange of data. It can also lead to incomplete and inefficient data transfer. Also it is time consuming. Use electronic health records and digitalised health information can save time, maintain data confidentiality and avoid human errors.

2. Accessibility of healthcare services : There are many remote areas where the medical team cannot reach. In such situations use of telemedicine can be very helpful. Technology allows for video calls setup, emails, internet setups so that the patient and his relatives can directly contact with healthcare members.

Two problems that technology cannot solve are:

1. High costs of healthcare : Technology cannot control the high costs of healthcare industry. Moreover it adds to the increase in cost both for the patient and the organisation. For eg : use of MRI has increased the diagnostic accuracy but it has also led to increase in billing amount for the patient. Also setting up of MRI renders a huge cost for the healthcare organization

2. The technology sometimes become difficult to use for the elderly. The complex systems involved in using of applications and systems makes it difficult to use for elderly. They need more simple and straightforward and familiar system to use. Also not all the patient population is literate which makes use of technology difficult.