Question

Describe the traditional structure and function of IT in hospitals in the context of its state of development and the structure of hospitals.

Answer 1

With the growing development in the field of IT, there has been a commendable change in the whole medical sector. In today’s scenario, the traditional structure and the major role that IT play in the development of hospitals are given as follows:

Traditional structure of IT in Hospitals:

• The most common structure for healthcare organizations is a functional organizational structure. The key feature of this structure is its pyramid-shaped hierarchy.

• This hierarchy defines the functions carried out in these organizations and the key management positions assigned to those functions .

• The size and complexity of different health services provided in any organization also plays an important role in depicting the structure of the organization.

• A simple example can explain this, for large community hospitals or hospital systems, these types of structures are most likely to have vertical structures which reflect the difference in the levels of administration control for any organization.

• These types of structure is important because of its high scope of services provided . These that are needed to enable the delivery of clinical services.

• Other main features that are associated with the above-mentioned functional structure include a strict chain of commands. These commands also ensures that the communication, assignment and evaluation of tasks which are being carried out are done in a linear approach and are performed in a well-controlled environment.

• This type of structure offers has some advantages like specific divisions of labor and clear lines of reporting which proves beneficial for the organization.

Role of “IT” in Hospitals or health sectors :

• The main objective of IT in health sector is to give better care for patients and help the health sector to achieve health equity all over the world.

• IT in hospitals also supports recording of patient’s data like personal information, history of patient’s diseases etc.

• Another significant advancement that IT has achieved in the field of health sector or medicines is the development of electronic medical records (EMR). This technology has ability of converting all the medical information into a single database.

• The data gathered from these databases is very helpful for the implementation of policies for better treatment of diseases and to prevent these diseases to spread.

• Health IT or with the development of IT in hospitals, there has been significant improvement in the quality of healthcare delivery and reduction in errors.

• A simple example of how IT has contributed in the development of hospitals is a software called Open Medical Record System which an open-source platform for electronic health record (EHR), designed for environments with low-resources.

• Another example can be “Computerized provider order entry” (CPOE) also called “Computer physician order entry”. This machine can reduce the rates of error in the medication field approximately by 80%.