Primary care physician Matt Handley believes that information technology enables him to provide better patient care.
So much so that he recently spent an afternoon hooking up a computer and DSL line at the home of a patient so she can contact him more frequently.
Handley is the associate medical director for quality and informatics at Group Health Cooperative in Seattle, a nonprofit health system armed with technology systems that have replaced paper records and enable patients to take part in their healthcare online.Indeed, health information technology is the new rage for politicians and many healthcare providers who think it will help transform the industry.
Proponents say it will lower healthcare costs and improve quality of care.
Others aren't so sure.
But computerized record-keeping and communication has the potential to change hospital care and procedures dramatically.
"It gets right to the heart of what we do every day . . . and hospitals have to take pause and think about what this will mean for them," says Gary Kalkut, senior vice president and chief medical officer of Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx.
The issues, Page E7.
How is this technology being used?
The systems do a variety of tasks, including replacing paper records with computerized versions and offering capabilities such as bar codes on medications, record management and suggestions for best practices for patient care. With some systems, patients can use the Web to access their medical records and lab results, communicate with physicians, schedule appointments and refill prescriptions.
How does this help patients and doctors?
Private-practice physicians who use comprehensive technology systems reported seeing positive effects on delivery of care and communication with other providers and patients, according to a New England Journal of Medicine survey published last summer. Eighty percent of the physicians polled reported their systems helped them avoid giving drugs to patients with known allergic reactions. More than 65% were alerted to order a critical lab test and recommend preventive care measures.
At Group Health, the integration of electronic records was shown to improve cholesterol and blood pressure in patients with chronic diseases. Montefiore Medical Center's electronic prescription and dispensing system offers assistance such as a maximum dose alert. The system has helped cut medication errors by about 80%, Kalkut says.
