Technology's Impact on Healthcare Delivery Systems

Introduction: Technology and Healthcare

Technology — and especially information technology — has been at the forefront of making a significant impact on the delivery of healthcare (Ferri & Klein, 2000). While almost all other industries have embraced technology to improve their work processes, the health industry has been slow to adopt it, even knowing that technology will become critical to their competitiveness. This has become especially urgent because healthcare spending, fueled by an increasing explosion of chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and heart failure, is growing rapidly. To address such challenges, the healthcare industry will be forced to leverage electronic systems for managing healthcare solutions (Lovata, 2000).

Internet Adoption and Clinical Data Repositories

With the continued evolution and broad adoption of the Internet, healthcare administration is finally catching up to the technology revolution. The Internet has allowed for the automation of many processes needed to manage patient access to care, healthcare delivery, information distribution, and health benefit design. Since healthcare is data-intensive, it is of paramount concern that data are recorded accurately for consumer satisfaction. Many hospitals have already automated processes such as physician referrals, formulary management, and claims adjudication, among others.

In addition, a broad variety of activities — from disease research to management of family medical histories — can be conducted through the Internet via platforms such as WebMD (Lovata, 2000). All of these applications of information technology are considered important in customizing health programs that fit specific family health and financial needs. Similarly, integrated databases are being used to quickly update and improve the delivery of urgent medical care. One recent advancement known as the Clinical Data Repository (CDR) initiative is designed to acquire data from relevant sources — such as pharmacy, laboratory, and encounter systems — and then clean it, match it, and consolidate it into one large database built on a single technology platform.

The database is then used to generate regular comparative reports regarding data integrity, utilization management, and quality improvement. Over a secure Web connection, participating medical groups are able to query the database remotely to perform unique analyses. The CDR offers participating medical groups and health plans access to a broad range of clinical analyses for purposes such as: assessing internal data capture rates; evaluating compliance with clinical protocols; identifying patients who would benefit from interventions; providing reports to physicians about their patients; and communicating directly with patients to improve health outcomes. The benefits of the CDR also include integrating managed care and reviewing the long-term effects of medications. From the provider's viewpoint, electronic delivery systems offer technology as a competitive tool.

Electronic Medical Records and Consumer-Driven Healthcare

Electronic medical records offer doctors and patients increased efficiency. Health plans can use specialized software to analyze factors such as cost, quality, and efficiency to determine which hospitals and physicians to include in their networks. Similarly, platforms like WebMD provide consumers with valuable information about their health so that they can take proactive action before visiting a doctor. Consumers also use these electronic databases to check alternative treatments or review a physician's background. With the rise of electronic media, consumer-driven healthcare is beginning to take shape around a variety of new models.