E-health technology is a new area that uses advancements in healthcare information. It promotes better healthcare services for patients around the world. In general terms, it is a network that provides better health care to patients using ICT technology.
Key Facts:
- E-health technology is an evolving field in medical information technology.
- E-health technology includes all kinds of electronic health data exchange. These include telemedicine, telehealth, etc.
- It also characterizes a technical commitment to global action in the field of health care.
- E-health technology is the transfer of health services and health care through electronic means. Electronics, information technology, and telecommunications support health care.
E-Health Technology Management, Benefits, and Challenges
In this article, we provide information on the benefits and challenges of e-health technology. How can you overcome e-health technology challenges? What are the ways to make e-health technology easy to use and beneficial?
According To The World Health Organization (Who), Three Main Areas Of E-Health Technology Are:
- Delivery of health knowledge to health providers and health users through the Internet
- Use the power of IT and e-commerce to enhance public health facilities, e.g., through preparation and health workers training.
- The use of e-commerce and e-business practices in the management of health services
What Are The Different Activities Of E-Health Technology Around The World?
- Encouraging and strengthening the use of ICT in health development.
- Develop plans and assessment agendas to help the Member States select, adopt, manage and estimate e-health clarifications. This helps promote sound governance and investment verdicts.
- Provide supervision and technical provision to the Member States. This helps integrate e-health technologies into their national e-health policies.
- Monitoring and broadcasting developments and trends in digital improvement for public health
- Supporting multi-sectoral partnership and management between various organizations. This helps in refining coordinated approaches to implementing cost-effective e-health resolution.
Advantages Of E-Healthcare System
The E-Health system is an area of development that uses technological advancements. It provides better services to patients. The goal is to make medical records available on the Internet. This helps doctors easily access them from anywhere in the world. The main goal behind using this effective platform is to ensure the easy exchange of data. This access has not been available in traditional healthcare systems. Through its implementation, we can get many future gains. That is why most healthcare organizations are trying to incorporate the e-health technology system into their organization. The benefits of the e-health technology include the following points:
Potential Advantages Of E-Healthcare Technology:
- Efficiency. One of the promises of e-health is that it would improve healthcare quality, lowering costs. The system is extremely cost-effective due to the use of new ICT tools. So, these tools reduce the extra costs involved with patients’ treatment and diagnosis. With this technology, patients can easily communicate with their prescribed doctors. And this will reduce their extra costs.
- Patients can monitor their day-to-day activities through the available healthcare portals. This encourages them to save time and extra costs. Also, making an appointment with their prescribed doctors becomes easy.
- It includes several other perspectives. E.g., systematic access to clinical health information, telemedicine, and various other interventions.
The Patient’s Stored Medical History Can Be Easily Accessed.
- So, people can quickly gain insight into their clinical conditions. So, they can even share these online records with any doctor they want. This facilitates communication. So, the transition of information between the doctor and the patient becomes easy.
- Electronic records can also capture the use of facility services more accurately. Patients will not see any change due to this advantage. But, third-party payers, such as the insurance provider, would have a complete record of activity and charges. So, this can increase the money that a medical provider can achieve.
- Suppose physicians need to share the patient’s medical information with every other clinician. Then, they can do this effortlessly.
- Suppose physicians need to share the patient’s medical report. It also decreases the amount of paperwork required in various processes by automating all related activities.
- This framework would provide patients with enhanced quality of services. And there will be fewer medical errors. Also, due to the clarity of the medical record representations, it encourages better decision-making.
- This promising system aims to bring online business to the healthcare domain. It can do this by encouraging users with better e-health services.
E-Health System Challenges
There are many benefits that we can draw from the e-health system’s introduction. But, there are also some disadvantages.
The Key Challenges Or Disadvantages To The Use Of The E-health System Are Described In The Section Below:
Major Drawbacks To E-Health Technology
The procurement cost is too high. So, organizations do not prefer to incorporate this system in their organization.
We need an uninterrupted internet link on both sides for a successful exchange of information. As a consequence, any lack of internet access can lead to inconvenience for its usability.
We know that the medical record will be stored in an electronic database. It also poses a major threat to the privacy of the patient’s medical records. This is because online systems are especially vulnerable to network breaches. So, these include phishing or cyber-attacks. In addition to the initial set-up costs, there are some additional costs to use the system effectively.
These Include Training For Staff Members. Otherwise, Certain Serious Issues May Arise.
The biggest challenge with e-health records is the lack of interoperability between disparate systems. To get a full picture of the patient’s medical history, systems must communicate easily. Furthermore, the information stored in the electronic record system has to be updated regularly. This is because decisions are evaluated based on a stored medical record. Therefore, some health problems can arise if some details are missing.
Not everybody in the medical staff will be open to the idea of the technical implementation. Also, there are health professionals who have doubts about the effectiveness of e-health. So, they may be unable to give up the documentation process. In certain cases, the staff lacks awareness of the current technological advances. This adds to the delayed implementation of e-health technology.
The Bottom Line
The world has seen significant changes in recent years. Progress in the healthcare sector has given rise to standards in facilities provided to patients around the world. E-health technology has proved to be one such development. It has made life easy for its consumers. Other than that, Health Record System’s personalization facilities make it very easy for patients to save their health records. However, all the privacy of this data is very important to be kept safe. So, the respective healthcare organization has to ensure the implementation of safety measures.
