According to Shortlife (2005), over 40 years have passed as the initial utilization of computer systems to sustain patient care through the administration of clinical information; amongst the early experimentations, the Lockhead/Technicon system at El Camiro Hospital in Mt. View California is possibly the top known and mainly influential of the hospital information systems.
But according to Shortlife (2005), the concept quickly gathered drive, and by the 1960s there were experiments with developed electronic medical record system that gathered data straight from clinicians and were intended for utilization in both out-patient and in-patient settings. As Shortlife cited, “archaic by modern standards, these system predated LAN, personal computers or PC, and the WWW; yet many embraced a vision of health and healthcare supported by EMRs, even though some observers expressed concern about the influence the technology would have on training practitioners and on clinical practice”.
According to Shortlife (2005), throughout the succeeding 3 and ? decades, the public has been inalterably transformed by the expansion of computing electronic communications, with recent cell phones having additional computing power than machines that held multiple time shared users in 1970. He added that, those who have worked in healthcare computing during this period of notable change often convey frustration concerning the sluggish rate of embracing of information technology or IT in healthcare when evaluated with other societal constituents like in e-commerce, general news and information dissemination, finance and education support.
As Shortlife (2005) stated, “it would be misleading to suggest that the world of medicine has been un-affected by the IT revolution that has been touching other aspects of society”. He added that, we know for example that health information is among the most frequently sought search categories on the “world wide web”, and consumers have been ever more empowered to take part actively in both prevention and as well as in treatment; likewise, it is uncommon in doctor who does not utilize computer systems to acquire laboratory results for his or her patients, and increasingly to present prescriptions or to have drug information.
The usual new hospital packed with computers – obvious on every nursing unit, in out-patient clinics, and all the way through the specialty units. I believed with what Shortlife has stated that, the existing culture exhibits an array of outlooks concerning the function that IT can and should participate in patient care; a lot of practitioners are persuaded by the development in clinical computing and consider that technology can and will boost both the efficiency with which they practice and the quality of the care they deliver.
Others are worried that the technology might impede with a sacred connection between patients and physicians, potentially dehumanizing the care development and encouraging impersonal approaches to the deep human problems that emerge in the context o disease and its management. Others, while reluctantly accepting the unavoidability of technology and its medical use, are bothered about whether they can personally build up skills and manners necessary to use IT efficiently; they even concerned about how they will be evaluated by their patients, or potential patients based on their use of or their failure to use in their practices
I agree with Shortlife (2005), that there is no scarcity of ideas on how to use technology in manners that apparently will progress practice, develop the quality of information and guidance that is available, give more information to patients; but our trials is how to control the developing technology and communications infrastructure I a way that is cost-effective; that holds health promotions, clinical care, and biomedical research; and that distinguishes and encourages the development of standards and of the cultural change that will be required.