It in Healthcare

Since taking this class on Health Care Informatics, I have learned quite a great deal about how IT (Information Technology) is being used and how IT is helping the healthcare industry improve its services and patients safety. After receiving the assignment on the Current Technology in Organization, I promptly scheduled an interview with one of my friends that work both as a programmer and a technician in the IT department of our organization. As per the requirement of the assignment, I asked my friend to discuss the current IT in place in our organization. I also made sure to discuss the three major questions that were asked in the assignment, which are: 1). what technology is used and how is it utilized? 2).What are the risks and benefits to the technology? 3).What is the organization's future plans for this IT? After almost an hour and half of interview, I'm fairly confident that I will be able to answer the questions for this assignment.

The first thing that we discussed was the technology that is currently in place in our organization. Talking with my friend about the current technology in place in our organization took at least thirty minutes. He patiently explained and discussed with me what technologies are in placed in our organization. He mentioned that most of our hardware we were using is quite slow and old compare to the systems in place today.

He also explained to me that the technologies in place are broken down into two categories, software technology and hardware technology. We still use the same software but are now updated for our new systems since everyone in our organization are already used to it and will not require any more training or spend extra resources. After getting a brief overview on our current technology, I asked my friend if our current technology is being utilized for finance or outcome management. He said as far as he's knowledge of the current system is concerned, the technology is being utilized for both. He kindly mentioned that since the whole organization got a new upgrade on its system, it just makes since to utilized the new technology for both finance and outcome management to prevent any kind of bottleneck or lag in the system. I asked him to elaborate on this further and he told me that if an organization only updated one part of the management system and not the other, this would create some kind of bottleneck or compatibility issues since the other system is older and other is faster. He said that by updating both systems the organization will get a better compatibility and prevent any lagging.

The next topic we talked about is the question that pertains to the technology that is in place and how it is utilized. Since he was the one who helped me answer some questions on my paper on health care informatics, I was pretty familiar with the systems in place. He just reviewed to me the current systems which involve the patient record system and how it is tied to the laboratory department, radiology department, and pharmacy department. He also discussed how the new patient record system is being utilized by both the clinical systems and the administrative systems. He mentioned that by having the patient record and having it tied to various departments, processing of patients both clinically and administratively has become more efficient and most errors are eliminated. He did mention that since implementing this new system, it has created more work for the IT department. He said mostly because the system is still new and there were a few bugs to be ironed out. He also mentioned that installation of new systems means new access list. They had to constantly monitor who has proper access to what records. He said this is to insure patient's privacy and safety. They make sure that each employee's level of access is current and updated. This goes for both clinical employees and administrative employees.

The next question on the line was what are the risks and benefits to the technology? My friend actually spent several minutes talking about this question because he said this same question has been on his mind since the planning stage of this new system. First he made a list of the benefits of the technology; I would