HealthCare Provider and IT

IT is very important to health care in today's society. IT improves the quality, safety, and efficiency of health care. The important thing to note is not all health cares have adopted IT into their investments. Although, it is very important for more and more health care companies to adapt to using IT because it will help them in the long run to be able to run a more efficient company. The healthcare provider i chose to research is MedPac. They use IT in various different ways to be more efficient to their customers and employees.

Medpac allows the company to collect, store, retrieve, and transfer information electronically. Medpac uses computerized provider order entry aka CPOE which can minimize handwriting or other communication
errors by having physicians or other providers enter orders into a computer system. This can also apply only to prescription drugs, or may also include additional physician orders such as x-rays, images, consultations, and transfers. Also Medpac uses electronic health records  aka EHR and most commonly known
as electronic medical records, automated medical records, and computer-based patient records. Multiple definitions exist depending on the constellation of functions that are included. They can be used simply as a passive tool to store patient information or can include multiple decision support functions such as individualized patient reminders and prescribing alerts.

Another type of IT that Medpac uses is Bar coding. Bar coding in a health care
environment is similar to bar-code scanning in other environments. They use an optical scanner to
electronically capture information encoded on a product. Initially, it will be used for medication. For example it can match drugs to certain patients by using bar codes on the medication and the patients arm bands they are given in hospitals or clinics.

Another cool type of IT that Medpac uses that i found very interesting was Radio frequency identification aka RFID. This technology tracks patients throughout the hospital and links lab and medication tracking through a wireless communications system. It is not fully developed yet and use less frequent but i can be an alternative to bar coding. Medpac also uses automated dispensing machines which dispenses the correct dose of medicine for whatever patient so they do not accidentally give them a wrong medication or wrong dose. Medpac also uses Clinical decision support system aka CDSS. CDSS
provides physicians and nurses with real-time diagnostic and treatment recommendations in an instant. This can be things like simple alerts and prescription drug interaction warnings to full clinical pathways and protocols. This is very important IT to doctors and is becoming more and more popular.

As you can see, Medpac uses IT to their advantage and has tons more IT that i have not even mentioned. IT is very important to adopting many clinical health IT applications because it is the belief that they improve the quality of patient care. Also it provides doctors and nurses and patients with instant information and also allows them to stay organized and run more cleanly and efficiently as a business. It is very important because  quality health care relies on physicians, nurses, patients and their families, and others having the right information at the right time and using it to make the right decisions that do not cause problems.