I found a very interesting article concerning information technology’s affect on the healthcare industry. The article stated that one of the largest organizations in Medicaid managed health plans, AmeriHealth Mercy Family, recently started to use a new program NaviNet clinical messaging, in addition to their already use of NaviNet. NaviNet allowed healthcare providers to check a patient’s insurance eligibility before they arrived for their appointment. Now with the addition of NaviNet Clinical Messaging, doctors are able to see not only the patient’s insurance eligibility, but they can see in real time the unmet medical needs of their patients before the patient’s appointment. This new information technology allows doctors to have the information about their patients at the point of care.
The implementation of this information technology is crucial in providing better care for patients. Since doctors are able to see unmet medical needs of their patients, they are able to know for instance in a patient missed a routine test. Sometimes a missed test can be the difference between life or death for a patient, so having an automated electronic program that can correct such human error is extremely useful and practical. I think all health plans need to start to implement this technology, because providing better care should be the goal of all medical institutions.
In addition to just providing information about unmet medical needs for individual patients, NaviNet Clinical Messaging also can allow doctors to view their patient’s from a larger scale perspective. For example, doctors can have access electronically and in physical form to all the patients they treat with a specific condition or illness. This type of information is as vital to providing good health care as is being able to see unmet medical needs, because now doctors have a good source of internal information. Having good internal information will inevitable benefit patients, because doctors will be able to cut costs, and reduce errors.
It also is a great idea that doctors have access to the number of patients with certain illnesses, because it can alert them to a possible epidemic of a certain disorder or infection. If doctors know that there is a large concentrated area of a certain disease they will be able to act more preventatively, and share the information to help stop further outbreaks.
I think advancements in these areas are the future of health care. Forgetting routine tests are very easy human errors to make, and by having electronic records that inform doctors, mishaps like such will dramatically decrease. Also, people will save money in co-pays and time, by only having to go to one doctor’s appointment versus maybe two or three to get the tests they forgot to inform their doctors about preformed. Doctors will save time as well, and have more appointments available for other patients, making the system work smoothly.
NaviNet Clinical Messaging is a very useful implementation of information technology that not only creates more organized health care, but more affordable and effective health care that all patients deserve.
Source:http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS168461+30-Apr-2009+BW20090430
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I’ve been reading a lot of these blogs and I am seeing so much about how information systems is changing the medical field dramatically, some are inventing things that allow others to receive the attention they need, others are expanding the field to reach those who are in dire need of medical care, and in the case of this it is preventing a lot of human error in the profession. I guess an industry that is highly demanded and is constantly changing, also needs the technology and use of that technology to move just as fast so that’s why NaviNet Clinical messaging seems to such a great implement. By giving more information to doctors to work with will only save lives by giving more of an opportunity to let the doctors perform their job.
ReplyDeleteI believe that navinet is a great use of information technology that will change the medical field in the near future. It will undoubtedly save lives, as well as cut costs in the medical profession. At a time when universal healthcare is becoming more and more popular, the question is will this idea sell? Not only that, but what guidelines will the users put in place when it comes to health insurance? I come from hardworking parents with jobs that provide excellent healthcare for my family. I still firmly believe that those without insurance deserve treatment. Will this system deprive those without insurance of basic needs, or even life or death procedures? And if humans can make errors, then can't this system make errors as well? Who is going to oversee this system and make sure it is correct? No cost cut or software implementation is equal to the value of human life.
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