Discussion on the Transformational Effect of IT on Health Care

The story of Oleg drives home the importance of quality in health care- which everyone seems to agree about. It also more importantly, stresses the value of information technology in helping to push the frontier of quality in the healthcare industry.

It is important to step away from the patients' point of view and focus instead; in this post on describing the various dimensions that quality in health care might take. It is a futuristic look at the various roles that health information technology might take in the hospital of the future, say 200 years from now.

The advantage of looking into the future is similar to the benefits derived from making sci-fi films which depict scenarios that might happen light years ahead of them. In an uncanny way, these movies seem to come to pass because they open up the imagination to think of the possibilities that might arise from new discoveries and these imaginations drive us to create the realities.

What will the hospital of the future look like? This question could be answered both regressively (looking backwards) and prospectively (looking forward). If that question were answered in the early 1800s, many people might not be able to predict so accurately, the role that information technology has played in our lives thus far. In the early 1800s with the prevalence of so many deadly communicable diseases like the plague or the black death, cholera, small pox and bacterial infections, surgery must have been very limited, however with the advent of the microscope many year later, we could see gems and Alexander Fleming discovered antibiotics. These discoveries changed the way we practice medicine and opened us up to brand new ways of providing healthcare.

I would like to postulate that on an even keel, one of the best discoveries to impact people’s health in this day and age is- you guessed it- the personal computer. With the advent of modern computing and the internet, technology has encroached in our lives in so many ways than we could ever predict. It has changed the way we manufacture, live, run our businesses and even interact with each other. After all, before these inventions, we would not be able to communicate in this way and we might not be able to share information as rapidly about the ever changing world of diseases and their management. So, what does the hospital of the future look like and what will health care look like many, many years from now? I will discuss that shortly.