Title: Moving towards efficient, safe, and meaningful healthcare: issues for automation

Authors: Sharie Falan, Bernard Han

Addresses: Bronson School of Nursing, College of Health and Human Services, Western Michigan University, 1903 W. Michigan Avenue, Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5345, USA. ' Department of Business Information Systems, Haworth College of Business, Western Michigan University, 1903 W. Michigan Avenue, Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5412, USA

Abstract: Correcting problems in healthcare delivery has become a top priority in the USA due to skyrocketing insurance costs and fast growth in national healthcare spending. This paper is aimed at examining how Health Information Technology (HIT) could be used to help the USA move towards efficient, safe, and meaningful healthcare. Our study is focused on healthcare needs in three areas: documentation, standardisation, and design and implementation. Urgent research issues in each area are presented. Our findings maintain that unique needs in the diverse healthcare environments must be incorporated into the convergent HIT system.

Keywords: care plans; care workflow; e-healthcare; EHR; electronic health records; electronic medical records; HIT; health information technology; SNOMED; electronic healthcare; meaningful healthcare; automation; healthcare delivery; USA; United States; documentation; standardisation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEH.2011.039060

International Journal of Electronic Healthcare, 2011 Vol.6 No.1, pp.76 - 93

Published online: 14 Mar 2011 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article