How many times have you tired to fill a prescription, only to be told that the pharmacist has to reach the doctor’s office first because the scrip can’t be read? Doctors, of course, have notoriously bad handwriting, compounded by the fact that they are usually filling out prescription forms while standing and talking to you at the same time. Isn’t it wonderfully easier for everyone involved when your prescription comes printed out from a computer?
Thanks to the current government focus on health care reform, much attention is being concentrated upon technology in health care. The focal point of this new attention is on potential cost reductions through better use of information technology. Even as medical research has improved the technology utilized within hospitals and doctors’ offices, there remains incredible potential beyond the walls of the clinics that’s only just beginning to be realized.
At a time when many of us organize our bills, budgets and business on computers, it can be almost shocking to see a wall full of tabbed manila folders in your doctor’s office. But even beyond each individual office’s use of computers for scheduling or record-keeping, the potential helpfulness of technology in medicine is great. Upgrading information technology throughout the health-care industry could allow hospitals and doctors to share vital patient records, possibly preventing some mistakes and streamlining diagnoses. And wouldn’t it be nice if you didn’t have to fill out a couple of pages of your own medical history each time you see a new doctor?
Technology can assist us, the patients, in other ways. It can provide us with ways to monitor our own health. For example, we could more easily maintain a centralized, computerized record of our own health records or utilize cell technology for mobile phone health management. In fact, some applications of technology in health care seem to be rising like grass-roots political movements: with patients becoming the driving force to the use of these tools. This includes everything from at-home blood-pressure cuffs to automated beepers as medicine reminders to mobile diabetes management in maintaining a log of glucose levels.
Let’s keep pushing from the ground up, and get our health care providers to simplify and streamline things through the technology so readily available. Our pharmacists will be grateful.
