Using Medical Care Software Effectively

In a world where the population is aging and where people live longer, there is more interest in and need for state-of-the-art medical care. The frightening fact is that in spite of the need for advance medical care and in spite of the massive steps forward in the world of information technology, the two elements of medical care and information technology have not grown together.

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In a field that could benefit so much from software and software innovations, medical care seems to be still living in a world where paper records and handwritten scrawls dominate. Even in the United States which is often in the technical vanguard, doctors do not tend to use electronic medical records or prescribe medications electronically.

Of all the places that can benefit from software, medical care is very near the top of the list. Software makes it easier to coordinate care, detect errors, and stick to appropriate clinical guidelines.

It makes it a lot easier for a patient's personal records to be monitored and tracked through the system if there is a central type of system that allows an individual medical care facility or even a single practicing physician to plug into a larger system where doctors and medical staff fill in information that is stored in a database.

About the biggest concern is patient privacy and confidentiality. The system can allow for an identifying number to be entered into the main medical database and only linked to the actual patient name through human intervention. For instance, if Joe Smith goes to the doctor, the doctor can enter all Joe's symptoms into a database that is stored locally but also uploaded on a regular basis to a main national database. On the local computer, Joe's name can be attached to the database but not uploaded to the main database.

If Joe moves across the continent, he can ask to have his records transferred. One of the major benefits of medical care software is that the entire body of information collected on Joe can be transmitted through a simple encrypted technique that can be sent electronically and that allows the new medical care facility to have the link go from one doctor to another. The new doctor uses the encrypted patient name and link to plug into the national database and pulls down all the information on that patient.

This is just one way that medical care software could benefit both the medical care system and the patient.