In Health Care Informatics
Healthcare 2.0When we read the headlines of
the New York Times or
Google News, we are familiar
with the word Behavioral Health care as an industry has an unwritten mantra of not wanting to be corporate. However, there are a number of lessons to be learned in which the survivability of the health care industry now depends on adopting proven practices of Enterprise. The first principle I would like to address is called work flow process. It is my experience that the leadership in health care organizations places minimal or no attention to work flow practices, their utility, their economic efficiency, and their practical implementation. Business enterprises regularly analyze work flow process in every department. This is what keeps their companies viable and profitable. During the last ten years, technology has become a backbone for work flow processes. It has moved beyond sharing documents in email and has scaled into the use of very sophisticated applications that automate a number of their work flow processes. By automation, their workers do not have to repeat redundant tasks, search for redundant information and can focus on delivering cutting edge, high quality solutions regardless of their role within the organization. In my discussions over the last several years with health care workers, managers and supervisors, these concepts tend to be foreign. Unfortunately, the state of the health care industry can no longer continue under its current model of operation both economically and pragmatically. It is time now for each agency to analyze internal work flow processes and match them with technologies that provide efficient organization of internal knowledge. A few new technology terms are highly relevant to begin understanding these solutions. They can quickly be researched in greater depth and detail on Wikipedia.org.
Web 2.0 refers to a transition
from using software programs that
run on your computer on your desk
or laptop to using applications
that operate and function on the
Internet exclusively. They only
require an Internet connection.
A second major component
of Web 2.0 is the principle of online
collaboration that is evident
in blogs, wikis, and personal/professional
profiles such as Facebook. These
applications connect people together
and provide countless venues for
sharing information, pictures, music,
and other aspects of our lives.
The relevance of Web 2.0 is that
its technologies have also been
adopted by Another method of computing to become more familiar with is cloud-computing. Cloud computing simply means using computer applications that do not reside on your computer, but are utilized by connecting to the Internet through secure ID and password portals. The main advantage of this type of computing is that it does not require purchasing additional hardware. Another advantage is the remote access by any user to relevant information. Disadvantages that have been asserted mainly pertain to programs and services that do not provide optimal security. Another evolving trend is collective intelligence. This was a trend recently discussed at the 2009 CIO Symposium at MIT in which it was asserted that collective intelligence will be the next big IT trend driving business. This trend simply exemplifies something we already know: The more talent we have working on a particular problem, the faster and the better the solution is developed. Concepts like these have been discussed and written about in books called Here Comes Everybody and Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. Finally, in a special issue of The Economist, the trend's role in the inevitability of health care technology change has been written about in great detail. You may read about this article here. |
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