Healthcare Technology Featured Article

February 23, 2010

Healthcare Technology and News: Medical Paper Trail Goes High Tech


The communications technology industry has a great solution for hospitals and healthcare providers long plagued by paper clutter. With the advent of electronic health records, gone are the days of misplaced or incomplete files.
 
Today, about 80 percent of practicing physicians rely on paper documents for patient records, according to a New York Times report. But that may soon change. Thanks to President Obama’s economic stimulus plan, which includes $19.2 billion for health information technology, more and more hospitals reportedly are investing to create and use electronic records, the report said.
 
This, in turn, will mean better quality for patients and improved efficiency for healthcare providers.
 
A digital account of medical records has a number of benefits. Beyond serving as a fix to doctor’s unreliable memories and dependence on paper records, it can also help physicians avoid ordering duplicate tests, the Times reported. What’s more, it can help reduce medical errors and make patient surgery safer.
 
As with any new technology, there are some challenges. In this case, that involves patient privacy.
While privacy concerns still linger regarding making medical records “live,” doctors say all information is secure and protected.
 
“The benefits to providing quality medical care way outweigh any privacy issues,” Dr. Cara Litvin, an internist at the Medical University of South Carolina who teaches doctors how to improve care using electronic records, told the New York Times.

Amy Tierney is a Web editor for HealthTechZone, covering business communications Her areas of focus include conferencing, SIP, Fax over IP, unified communications and telepresence. Amy also writes about education and healthcare technology, overseeing production of e-Newsletters on those topics as well as communications solutions and UC. To read more of Amy's articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Amy Tierney
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