A Management and Information Perspective on Healthcare - We Have the Technology
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Actually, we already have the technology we need. A few examples:
We have CPOEs, computerized physician order entry systems, with which
doctors can file prescriptions and give orders for lab work. These can
issue alerts on possible adverse drug interactions. Mistakes are
reduced, as are time and costs.
We have EHRs, electronic health records, which capture every piece of
information about a patient and are accessible to qualified medical
personnel online. In an emergency the patient doesn’t have to remember
drugs he’s taking and nobody has to track down a manila folder.
We have CDSS, clinical decision support systems. These advise doctors
on the latest best practices in diagnosis and treatment, allowing them
to customize what they do for an individual patient. This is
controversial terrain. There is obviously a difference between what is
known in the aggregate and what is right for an individual. And nobody
wants insurance companies to use this information to turn doctors into
robots; there is enough policing of physicians in the name of
cost-containment today.
Nevertheless, when studies indicate that only about half of all
patients get widely accepted and uncontroversial advice from their
doctors – such as taking aspirin for heart conditions – it’s time we
considered something new. Moreover, if we had a national,
interoperative, medical information network, we would be able to see
patterns in the aggregate data. We could learn, for example, whether a
certain test is actually worthwhile in a certain situation. The quality
of healthcare would go up and the cost would go down.
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Health Care 
