Transcript Informatics, Communications & Access to Health Care Information

Informatics,
Communications &
Access to Health Care
Information
Nora Oliveri, MD
Fundación de
Informática Médica
(Medical Informatics
Foundation)
[email protected] /
[email protected]
The New Digital Structure…
 The incorporation of informatics to
medicine allows us to go from an
infrastructure based on pencil to a digital
infrastructure. Then, we enter the digital
era, the information era.
…The New Digital Structure
 The flow of information is the main
differentiating feature in organizations in
the digital era. Once informatics is
incorporated to our activity all processes
are easier and swifter. By using informatics
we have access to the information that we
need, and this allows us to make proper
and timely decisions.
Significance of the Internet in
Access to Information
 The value of the Internet as a quick,
efficient & economic means to access
information is still more important in
countries where high costs in
communication and low economic
resources make it impossible sometimes, to
obtain available information at the right
time.
Kofi A Annan, General Secretary of
the United Nations says…
“The quantity and quality of the available
information is changing each day, in each
country, in each corner of the world. Access
is crucial. The capability to receive, send,
and share information through computer
nets, the possibility of publishing works
without censorship or restrictions, the
freedom to communicate at will beyond
frontiers, will be the basic rights for
everyone.
…Kofi A Annan,
General Secretary
of the United Nations says
For a long time, economic inequality and
fear to freedom has prevented most men
and women in the planet from making the
most of the knowledge the information
revolution has provided to us.”
Internet is….
Internet is a Metanet, is a network of
networks, global, worldwide, planetary,
made up by multiple computers connected
among themselves and that communicate
with each other using the same language.
Besides, is a model of Information
Systems.
Internet presents the fastest growth
of any media in history
To reach 50 MM of users it took:
Radio 38 years
TV
13 years
Cable 10 years
Internet 5 years
E-mail
 The e-mail is the digital version of our
traditional mail
 It is the most popular service in the Internet
 Tens of millions of e-mail messages
circulate daily through the net all over the
world
 There is no relation between geographical
distance and time
WWW or Web
 WWW was created in 1989, 20 years after
the creation of the Internet
 A system that allows to interconnect the
information that will be available through
the Internet.
Internet # Web
 Internet:
MEDIA by which access is obtained to
information.
It is the computer net that allows to access
the information stored on the WWW
 Web:
It is the information contained in the net,
which can be presented as text, images,
audio, video
Search Engines
Some of the most useful search engines
specialized in locating information regarding a
given topic of the health care field
 Medhunt: [www.hon.ch/MedHunt]
 Medexplorer: [www.medexplorer.com]
 Medscape: [www.medscape.com]
 HealthAtoZ: [www.healthatoz.com]
 Medical World Search:
[www.mwsearch.com]
 Yahoo Health: [dir.yahoo.com/Health]
Telemedicine &Telehealth
 “Telemedicine is the use of
telecommunications & informatics with
medical purposes”
J. Preston, 1993
Telemedicine &Telehealth…
 “Telehealth: Is a compound term that
includes activities related to health,
services and methods, which are carried
out in the distance with the help of
information & telecommunications
technology.”
Definition by the Experts Group of the WHO,
Geneva, 1997
…Telemedicine &Telehealth
 Its goal is to improve the population’s
health, the control of diseases and medical
care, as well as education, administration
& research in the health area.
 Telehealth policies must be addressed to all
countries and regions within each country,
to identify the key issues in introduction of
Telehealth, and to provide a strategy for
this introduction.
…Telemedicine &Telehealth
 The most important benefits are related to
cost saving, extension of health cover for
everyone and improvements in population
health indexes.
Telehealth includes
 Telemedicine
 Tele-education
 Tele-research
 Tele-administration
Telemedicine
It is the supply of health care services by
professionals, in places where distance is a
critical factor, using information and
telecommunication technology for
exchanging reliable information for
diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of
diseases, research, evaluation and
continuing medical education, with the
goal of improving individuals’ and peoples’
health.
Tele-education…
 It is a dynamic process by which changes
can be transformed in attitudes,
knowledge, information and training
through information and communication
technologies to and for the patients, health
care professionals and communities with
the purpose of encouraging health
improvement.
…Tele-education
 The most important ideas in Tele-education
include:
 Learning throughout life
 Health improvement
 Participatory Education
 Education without frontiers
Tele-research…
It includes a variety of scientific activities
addressed to solve health care problems
including:
 Connection & collaboration among
individuals and centers to share ideas,
results and to access the core of
competence, information and knowledge
bases
…Tele-research
 Development of new telematics and
application technologies
 Assessment and validation of telematics
applied to health care and its effects on
individuals, societies and disciplines
related to health care.
Tele-administration
It is the use of information and
communications technology for planning,
implementation, funding, and assessment
of disease control, quality, efficiency and
effectiveness in service supply.
This also includes epidemiological
surveillance and control, and
administration of human & technical
resources.
Obstacles in incorporation of
Telehealth…
A.
Political / Economic
• Expectation - Failure in demand
• Political support based in Health Care
for Everyone
…Obstacles in incorporation of
Telehealth
B.
Social / Cultural
• Attitude & training for health care
professionals
• Existence of flow of traditional
information
…Obstacles in incorporation of
Telehealth
C.
Ethical / Legal
• Data confidentiality & protection
• Transaction malpractice
• Professional credential
Obstacles for incorporation of
Telehealth
D. Technical / Financial
• Regulation and training framework
• Telecommunication networks
• Help for the user
• Tele-diagnosis can increase costs
• Costs policy
• Data and method assessment
Applications in Computerized
Health Care
 Access to Databases
 Electronic Medical Records
 Distance Training
 Operation Monitoring
 Tele-ambulance
 Home Care
 Epidemiological Surveillance &
Prevention
 Health Care Services Planning
 Mobile Applications
Prospect in Latin-America for
the next 5 years
 Improvements in communication
infrastructure associated to decrease in
costs of services will allow the
development and implementation of health
care networks.
 A better access to information will allow
medical services to be addressed more
specifically to prevention.
Prospect in Latin-America for
the next 5 years …
 Systems of Epidemiological Surveillance
and Disease Monitoring will allow a
careful control in the whole population.
 Family physicians will be the first link of a
health care system interconnected that will
allow to make references, counterreferences, requests for studies, results
receipt, control and treatment alert.
Prospect in Latin-America for
the next 5 years …
 Distance medical education through the
Internet will allow that all professionals
interested in keeping updated can do so
with a low cost, accessing highly qualified
programs and self-regulating the time to be
able to follow their own pace.
Prospect in Latin-America for
the next 5 years …
 Institutions will carry out massive training
of staff through Intranets, which will allow
a significant saving of costs and permanent
control of individual and general training
level with highly standardized information.
Prospect in Latin-America for
the next 5 years …
 The implementation of applications for
mobile devices will allow to perform a
better control and follow up of patients
with chronic pathologies, such as diabetes
or hypertension, as well as elder patients.
Prospect in Latin-America for
the next 5 years …
 Professionals will enrich the medical
relationship with patients by establishing a
bilateral computer link that will allow them
not only to provide medical information,
but to educate the population, too.
 In turn, the patients will be able to know
the degree of training and updating before
choosing a professional in directories
available from institutions authorized for
professional certification and recertification.
Prospect in Latin-America for
the next 5 years …
 Computerization of administrative
processes will allow a better control of
transactions and clearness in purchases.
 The analysis of transactions will allow
billing to be transmitted without mistakes,
thus making collection of services swifter,
and detecting any attempt of fraud or
abuse.
Now, let us imagine that…
 We could add to our health care system the
elements described here.
 All actors of the system are connected
between themselves
 We have an urgency system that allows for
incorporation of all information and taking
data from the hospital central system
 The computers are very friendly and can be
managed by a tactile screen, optic pencil
or voice recognition
…Now, let us imagine that
 Billings and administrative procedures are
carried out automatically
 The information remains recorded on line
so that it can be consulted by any other
professional that may need it from a remote
place
 All the information about treatments and
administered drugs is evaluated
automatically to help preventing adverse
and secondary reactions
Conclusions
Undoubtedly, many changes will have to be
done to reach a health care system that may
operate thus.
This will be a challenge that will be worthy
to face to have a better quality of life and
to get increasingly closer to health care
principles for everyone.