With the arrival of the new millennium, we find ourselves well into the “information age” with respect to healthcare delivery.
history
Description
- Introduction
- With the arrival of the new millennium, we find ourselves well into the “information age” with respect to healthcare delivery. Improving the delivery of healthcare both in a quantitative and qualitative sense will depend on improving management of digital information within and among healthcare institutions. Currently, within a given healthcare setting, there are typically dozens of information systems that each perform specific functions. There might be, for example, a billing system, an admission/ discharge/transfer (ADT) system that registers patients, as well as numerous departmental systems (eg, radiology information system and picture archiving and communication system [PACS]). To optimize “information efficiency,” these systems need to intercommunicate such that end-users of the system have the information they need to make their decisions and get their work done, when and where they need to do so. Historically, many of these information systems developed as monolithic, stand-alone systems without significant interfaces to other systems. Fortunately, the advent of medical information systems standards such as HL7 (Health Level 7) (1)
