A great deal of ink and airtime have already been devoted to the Health Service Executive's Personnel, Payroll and Related Systems (PPARs) project, which cost the taxpayer somewhere between EUR130 million and EUR195 million (depending on who you ask), compared to the EUR9 million budgeted for the project. More recently, it was revealed that the Health Service Executive had in 2005 spent EUR56.4 million more than was originally thought. It's also true that the dust has not yet settled on either matter; the Department of Health and all of the agencies under its remit will now face intense scrutiny when it comes to all new projects, especially IT projects.
In fact, according to research company Datamonitor, ICT in healthcare can not only improve quality of care, but also help contain and even reverse spiralling costs. Datamonitor predicts that investment in healthcare IT will grow strongly over the next six years, with France, Germany and the UK combined showing a compound annual growth of 7.5 percent. The EU has also recognised the need to improve the use of ICT in healthcare -- setting out eHealth targets under the eEurope 2005 Action Plan. Estimates indicate that 5 percent of health budgets in Europe will go toward IT systems and services by 2020.
The truth is, increasing demands on health systems throughout Europe have changed the model of care to that which focuses on the needs of the patient rather than the institution. But given the scale of most public health services, including Ireland's own Health Service, this transition to a patient-centric approach can only be brought about with the help of technology.
High-tech health service
Certainly, the healthcare industry is no stranger to technology -- X-ray machines, Electro Cardio Grams (ECG) and respirators are just a few innovations which are now commonplace. But public healthcare has been slow in harnessing IT to make the most of this diagnostic technology, for example, being able to send X-ray pictures over a secure, high-speed internet connection. Yet somehow the necessary connectivity required to make this happen has become an afterthought in capital expenditures. Network investments are often under-used due to resistance among healthcare workers. What's more, where applications and devices exist, they are often fragmented.
"Networking technology is pivotal to the future of any healthcare service, as a secure connected network can unlock a host of cost-saving benefits and will help improve patient care," said Michael Galvin, country manager Ireland, Cisco Systems. "Imagine wider access to information for consumers via healthcare internet sites, or for medical staff through online patient records. Connected handheld devices could save hospital staff time, as could self-service appointment applications. At the core of all of these advances are intelligent networks."
Galvin explained that Cisco has developed a vision that it hopes will influence healthcare providers in Ireland. Called "Connected Health," this vision is based on using IT to transform the efficiency of all the activities that relate to healthcare -- from putting the processes and decision-making involved in prescribing pharmaceuticals online, to providing millions of healthcare professionals with continual professional development via online learning. To make this inspiration a reality for hospitals and large clinics, Cisco has launched an initiative called the Medical-Grade Network.
The push to develop more efficient healthcare infrastructure is evident throughout Europe, where IT projects in Iceland, Spain, Sweden, and the UK have gained notoriety, enhancing everything from physical security to radiology and imaging. For its part, the UK seems especially eager; the NHS last month re-confirmed plans to spend an enormous STG6 billion on an electronic data initiative that will replace a mishmash of 5,000 computer networks with one system that can be accessed by 100,000 doctors, 380,000 nurses and 50,000 other health professionals.
Here in Ireland, hospitals are also now studying their own IT systems in search of inefficiency. Meanwhile, smaller parts of the Irish healthcare machine have sought high-tech solutions to common problems; in mid-January, Shannon's Pharmacy in Dublin put in place a robotic medicine dispensing machine called the Rowa Speedcase, which is designed to minimise dispensing errors and allow pharmacists to increase their time with patients. "Technology has an enormous role to play in enhancing the pharmacist/patient relationship," noted David Raethorne, technical director with Systems Solutions, which designed the software interface for the robot.
Beyond robots, technology could be used to make possible collaboration among healthcare professionals or access to patient information from anywhere, Galvin explained. For example, advanced networking tools can allow heart function information from high-risk patients to be fed from electrodes to a mobile phone, which would be linked to a doctor's computer. "This means that a patient can be thousands of miles from a hospital and still be given routine checks, saving time for both doctors and patient," he said.
"We are now at the stage where hospitals are looking to the convergence of voice, video and data to decrease maintenance and network administration costs, increase staff productivity and support the delivery of applications," Galvin added. "There is a real opportunity for hospitals in Ireland to build nervous systems that boost efficiency, and more importantly, quality of care."
Quelle: ElectricNews, 10.02.2006
