Question

Technology has had a profound effect on many of the advancements in the healthcare field. Select three ways that you feel these changes have been the most profound. Discuss the influence that each of these changes have had on a particular aspect of healthcare. Explore the impact on decision-making and ethical choices that are afforded to the patient and the healthcare provider’s or professional’s perception. Lastly, consider whether you feel that technology offers significant benefits, or produces new ethical dilemmas for healthcare.

Answer 1

Continuous technological developments in healthcare have saved countless lives and improved the quality of life even more. Not only has technology changed experiences for patients and their families, but it’s also had a huge impact on medical processes and the practices of healthcare professionals.

*The Digitalization of Health Records

The introduction of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) in replacing paper records has been a game changer for many allied healthcare professionals. Medical assistants, medical records and health information technicians (MRHITs), medical billing and coding professionals, and registered nurses are just some of the allied healthcare roles impacted by this implementation.

Nurses and technicians are now responsible for inputting patient data such as vital signs, weight, test results, etc. into a central, digitized system. On the administration side of things, medical billers and coders use EHRs for scheduling appointments, updating patient records with diagnostic codes, and submitting medical claims.

Benefits of EHR:

• Enhanced patient care
• Improved public health
• Ease of workflow
• Low healthcare costs
• Big data and the cloud
• Better and safer data storage

*Information and communication technology

Approximately 270 million Americans own a mobile phone and even more are connected online. As with any industry, healthcare has needed to transform its communication processes to connect with people wherever they are.

Information and communication technology (ICT) link healthcare professionals, as well as professionals with patients. It’s especially useful in rural areas and places with a lack of facilities and/or specialist services.

Email, smartphones, webcam, telemedicine, and telemonitoring systems are all currently being used to share information. They serve many purposes, such as diagnostics, management, counseling, education, and support.

Examples include :

-Telemedicine

The terms ‘telemedicine’ and ‘telehealth’ can be used to refer to two-way video consultations or the transmission of healthcare data like electrocardiograms (ECGs). Telemedicine can be used in many fields, such as cardiovascular healthcare.

Telemonitoring technology can monitor vital signs and symptoms remotely.

-Mobile health or mobility

Mobile health apps give professionals, administrators, and patients greater flexibility. They are an inexpensive way for facilities to provide more high-quality services, and at the same time are cheaper for patients to access.

Some generate better health awareness, while others assist communication between patient and care providers. Here are some of the areas that ‘mhealth’ apps can assist with:

• Chronic care management
• Medication management
• Medical reference
• Diagnostics
• Personal health records
• Women’s health
• Fitness and weight-loss
• Mental health

*Ethical standards may promote the values of cooperation and collaborative work. Finally, ethical standards in medical care promote other important moral and social values such as social responsibility, human rights, patients' welfare, compliance with the law, and patients' safety.

The foundation of ethical decision-making involves choice and balance; it is a guide to discard bad choices in favor of good ones.

Values involve emotion, knowledge, thought, and ultimately the choice of response. Values vary between individuals and because values govern behavior, they color the way individuals view and respond to their world. It is important to understand the impact values have on choice. While values can, and do, change over time, they represent a significant component of personality. It is through individual values that culture is defined, and provides broad social guidelines for desirable standards. Generally described as normal societal standards, or norms, values influence how people make choices.

To be ethically successful, it is paramount that we understand and respect how values impact our social environment. When we consider favor of the patient as an health care provider while during the decision-making process we have to respect the values of the patient and make the decision according to the ethical basis, thus it will be affordable for both of the patient and health care providers.

*The advantages of health information technology (IT) include facilitating communication between health care providers; improving medication safety, tracking, and reporting; and promoting quality of care through optimized access to and adherence to guidelines. Health IT systems permit the collection of data for use for quality management, outcome reporting, and public health disease surveillance and reporting. However, improvement is needed with all health IT, especially regarding design, implementation, and integration between platforms within the work environment.

Through the innovation of technology in health care offers so many benefits.

Through Health Information Technology, there is maximizing the benefits of health care information systems. Information systems can improve cost control, increase the timeliness and accuracy of patient care and administration information, increase service capacity, reduce personnel costs and inventory levels, and improve the quality of patient care.

Health IT has become an integral part of the practice of medicine. As with any new technology, health IT brings many potential benefits and as well as potential concerns. As the implementation and use of health IT systems increase, it is important to keep patient safety and quality as a major focus.

In my view more than produces new ethical dilemmas for health care the health information technology offers significant benefits to us.