challenges to using technology to report patient outcomes

by Taya Herzog MD 8 min read

Prospects and challenges in using patient-reported …

8 hours ago Additional barriers might also decrease the formalized collection of patient-reported outcomes in clinical practice. Lack of motivation to collect and use patient-reported outcomes driven by inertia is a significant concern, just as inertia is a barrier to widespread adherence to clinical guidelines . Another barrier is the steep learning curve that some clinicians may face. >> Go To The Portal


Issues with system functionality, including poor user interfaces and fragmented displays, delayed care delivery. Issues with system access, system configuration, and software updates also delayed care. In 18 studies (53%), IT problems were linked to patient harm and death.

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How has technology positively impacted the patient experience?

Read on for some of the ways technology has positively impacted the patient experience. Opening Up Better Lines Of Communication Between Patients And Clinicians Technology allows patients and providers to communicate more quickly and clearly.

Do problems with health information technology affect care delivery and patient outcomes?

Heterogeneity in study design and IT problem types prevented quantitative examination of effects on care delivery and patient outcomes. This review confirms that problems with health IT can disrupt care delivery and harm patients.

How willing are patients to be exposed to information technology?

92.3% of those exposed to both electronic and paper vs 59% of those exposed only to paper (P=.001) were willing; patients exposed only to paper more likely to report barriers: data privacy (P=.003), technical knowledge (P=.02), discomfort using technology (P=.02), no internet (P=.05) [34] Web Tablet Adherence

How can organizations improve patient safety through health information technology?

Organizations need to identify areas that health information technology might aid in improving patient safety namely, medication safety, guideline adherence, and so forth. 3. Stake-Holder Involvement: Stakeholders need to be involved in all phases of health information projects from planning and implementation until continuous improvement.

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How does technology affect patient outcomes?

Technological innovations can enhance patient safety by automating tasks, introducing medication alerts, clinical reminders, improved diagnostic and consultation reports, facilitating information sharing, improving clinical decision-making, intercepting potential errors, reducing variation in practice, and managing ...

What are the challenges of technology in healthcare?

When thinking about technology in the healthcare industry, and more specifically embedded communications, there are several crucial factors to consider.Security. ... Data Privacy and Regulations. ... Integration and cost effectiveness. ... Simple user experience. ... High performing and high quality solutions.

What are the barriers and challenges to adopting health information technology?

With the repeated calls for the use of technology in healthcare, there are, nevertheless, barriers to its adoption. There are six primary barriers to the adoption of technology identified by prior research: cost, legality, time, fear, usefulness, and complexity.

What are some disadvantages of technology in healthcare?

Summary: Disadvantages of Technology in HealthcareCybersecurity risks. Risk related to breach of protected health information. ... Impersonal patient-doctor interaction / patient isolation. Patients interact with technology instead of a live care provider. ... Frustration with poor implementation.

What are the 4 major digital challenges in the healthcare industry?

So, what are the challenges many healthcare systems still face when taking on a digital health strategy? They include interoperability, cybersecurity, privacy and challenging misinformation.

What are challenges of technology?

That said, here are 7 technology challenges that companies will face in the second half of 2020 and onwards.Information security. ... Cloud computing. ... Integrations and upgrades. ... Automation and robotics. ... Artificial intelligence and machine learning. ... Skills gap. ... Business continuity and disaster recovery plans.More items...

What are the barriers to using electronic health records?

The most significant barriers were lack of national information standards and code sets (62 percent), lack of available funding (59 percent), concern about physician (51 percent), and lack of interoperability (50 percent) (8).

What are the barriers to information technology?

As for the school, these barriers are lack of ICT infrastructure, poor quality and inadequate maintenance of hardware, limited access to ICT equipment, lack of appropriate training software.

What are some of the barriers that have to be overcome in order for health information technologies to deliver value to providers and other stakeholders?

Costs, staff (lack of, training, resistance), and issues related to the technology (interoperability, privacy, issues during implementation) were among the most frequently mentioned barriers.

How has Information Technology hindered patient care?

The widespread adoption of information technology (IT) brings many potential benefits to health care. At the same time, problems with IT can disrupt the delivery of care and increase the likelihood of new, often unforeseen, errors that affect the safety and quality of clinical care and may lead to patient harm.

How does technology negatively affect nursing?

Potential Drawbacks of Nursing Technology The rapid growth of technology in the healthcare space has identified potential obstacles that hospital systems may face. Improved technology can threaten to replace person-to-person interaction between nurse and patient.

What are the pros and cons of technology?

In this article, the pros and cons of technology are examined....Top 10 Technology Pros & Cons – Summary List.Technology ProsTechnology ConsSafety improvementsSocial tensionsIncrease in life expectancyUnemployment8 more rows

How does information technology improve patient safety?

We conclude that health information technology improves patient’s safety by reducing medication errors, reducing adverse drug reactions, and improving compliance to practice guidelines. There should be no doubt that health information technology is an important tool for improving healthcare quality and safety.

How does electronic medical record help?

There is substantial evidence that implementing an electronic medical record reduces medical errors and improves patient’s safety. Computerized physician order entry and CDS are probably one of the most beneficial health information technologies for improving patient safety.

What is clinical decision support?

Clinical decision support. Clinical decision support provides the health care professional with information and patient-specific information. This information is intended to enhance the decision of the healthcare provider and is rationally filtered and presented to the healthcare professional at appropriate times.

What is a computerized physician order entry system?

Computerized physician order entry systems are usually integrated with a clinical decision support system (CDS), which acts as an error prevention tool through guiding the prescriber on the preferred drug doses, route, and frequency of administration.

What are patient-reported measures?

Background: Patient-reported measures include preferences and reports about care received, health behaviors, and outcomes of care ( patient satisfaction and health-related quality of life). These measures are a core aspect of health care, but there is much to be learned about how to use them to improve clinical practice.

Why are patient-reported outcomes important?

At subsequent visits, patient-reported outcomes help evaluate disease progression or regression as well as treatment effects. Conclusions: Patient-reported measures can help clinicians target interventions that will improve patient outcomes of care. However, there are a number of challenges in using patient-reported outcomes in clinical practice.

How does electronic prescribing help?

Electronic prescribing in particular can help reduce prescription mistakes by allowing health providers to send prescriptions directly through to the pharmacy. Technology relating to electronic prescribing helps with medical alerts, clinical flags and patient medication reminders also helps to improve patient safety.

What is telehealth technology?

Telehealth technology supports patient care, administrative activities, and health education. It is touted as strategy for improving access to care while lowering the cost of transportation and increasing patient convenience.

Why is it important to have reliable information exchange between all the health providers involved in a patient's care team?

Ensuring reliable and fast information exchange between all the health providers involved on a patient’s care team not only helps to optimize patient health outcomes, but it also can also facilitate optimized outcomes for the health system overall. The benefits of better-coordinated care can include:

How does technology help in health care?

Technology in the form of electronic health records can also benefit self-monitoring, adherence and patient convenience. Call centers and other business process outsourcing efforts in particular are helping to increase patients’ ability to connect and experience better outcome s.

What is the shift to value based care?

Healthcare reform and the shift to value-based care has presented new challenges for health providers and systems. The advent of the Affordable Care Act has expanded health insurance coverage, which has meant a greater amount of patients and a greater number of financial and health complexities. Meanwhile, hospital performance ratings are based on ...

How many deaths are caused by medical errors?

One study published in the journal BMJ estimates that more than 250,000 deaths each year in the US are caused by medical error.

Why is technology important in the ER?

Patients with complex or chronic conditions receive care from more than just their primary care physician. If a child needs to go to the emergency room (ER), technology can help to ensure their pediatrician and other in-network health providers are made aware.

How does information technology affect health care?

1 At the same time, problems with IT can disrupt the delivery of care and increase the likelihood of new, often unforeseen, errors that affect the safety and quality of clinical care and may lead to patient harm. 2–7 Our capacity to reap the benefits of IT and manage new threats is contingent upon understanding the ways in which IT problems can disrupt care delivery and pose threats to patient safety.

What is information value chain?

The information value chain begin s with clinical users interacting with information from IT systems before considering decisions and taking action. The different types of IT problems that could affect user interaction are similar to those described in our earlier classification for safety problems associated with health IT. No new categories were required to code the IT problems, information errors, and contributing factors identified in this review, further validating the classification. The frequency of IT problems and their scale and severity are areas for further investigation.

What is health IT?

Health IT was broadly defined as computer hardware and software used by health professionals to support patient care. We focused on studies reporting problems with IT and its effects on care delivery and patient outcomes. These effects were examined using a new framework called the information value chain, which connects the use of a technology to final outcome ( Figure 1 ). 10,11 The chain is initiated when a user interacts with an IT system. A subset of these interactions will yield new information, only some of which then lead to changed decisions. Next, only some decisions will see changes in the care process, and only some process changes will impact patient outcome. Using this framework, we sought to identify the effects of IT problems on each stage of this chain, from user interaction to clinical outcome.

What is the framework used to assess how IT problems affect user interaction, information receipt, decision-making, care processes,

A framework called the information value chain , which connects technology use to final outcome, was used to assess how IT problems affect user interaction, information receipt, decision-making, care processes, and patient outcomes.

What is 98Point6?

Companies that are innovating on health-care's access problem include 98Point6, a text-based mobile platform that provides primary care delivered by U.S. board-certified physicians, and AmericanWell, a telehealth platform that allows users to connect with doctors via video.

What is AI in healthcare?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the most promising technologies in health-care. For example, providers may be able to use predictive analytics to anticipate what their patients will need instead of merely reacting as new concerns arise.

What is access to care?

Access to care may be one of the most central questions confronting health-care leaders today. Consumers want convenient, easy access to care; in a survey conducted by my company ( via Healthcare Dive ), 51% of consumers surveyed said convenience and access to care were the most important factor in their decision-making. Their desire for convenience may contribute to the growth of non-traditional care models like telehealth. And providers are finally getting on board; one 2019 survey ( via Healthcare Dive) found that physician adoption increased 340% between 2015 and 2018. In 2015, 5% of providers surveyed used telemedicine, increasing to 22% by the end of 2018. Leading health systems are starting to anticipate the demands of their consumers.

Is AI good for cancer?

In June 2019, IBM Watson Health announced studies that show progress in the use of AI to improve clinical decision-making and treatment in cancer care. According to one report, machine learning researchers even believe that by 2053, AI could out-perform human surgeons.

Who is Paul Cooper?

Paul Cooper is the Chief Information Officer at NRC Health, a customer intelligence company bringing human understanding to healthcare. A fundamental truth about the health-care system is that many avoid using it. In fact, most working-age Americans only visit the doctor an average of 3.9 times a year (as of 2010).

Why is multidisciplinary collaboration important in veterinarians?

Hence, multidisciplinary collaboration and communication are fundamental for increasing the value provided to patients.

Why is it important to measure outcomes?

Measuring and reporting outcomes is crucial for learning and improving care over time.

What is the aim of a veterinarian?

The aim of doctors (and veterinarians) is not only to save lives but also to improve the lives of patients. 26This means decreasing clinical signs such as pain, incontinence, or diarrhea or helping patients get up, lie down, and walk better after surgery.26, 27.

Why is care often poorly coordinated among clinicians within and across settings?

Care is often poorly coordinated among clinicians within and across settings, and the increase in specialization further adds intricacy to the system because of the involvement of multiple doctors. When multiple doctors participate in the care of patients in a silo, accountability for patient care gets blurred.

What is the foundation of learning in health care?

The foundation for a learning health care system is continuous knowledge development, improvement, and application. Despite the vast amount of information, doctors and patients often lack access to guidance that is relevant, timely, and useful for the circumstances at hand.

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