Information Technology In The Field Of Medicine
Information technology has become an all pervasive field – that is, it has become integrated with every other possible field, ranging from essential services such as defence, medicine and construction to lesser important ones such as entertainment. In fact, it is hard to find a sector in today’s society free of information technology. The reasons are mostly the enhanced ability to perform better in these fields, and without much difficulty.
The field of medicine is one of the many sectors that has thus greatly benefited from the advancements in technology. Listed below are three major revolutionary introductions which rendered easier, and greatly increased the efficiency of healthcare practices:
• Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) – An Electronic Medical Record is basically a computerized form of the previously paper-based patients’ health record system. It is capable of storing about a patient, such as his personal details and statistics (i.e. various health charts), symptoms, past medical records, allergies and immunities, past surgeries, etc. and retrieving them with one single click.
Thus, the doctor is capable of maintaining an efficient health record system for all of his patients, which greatly increases the accuracy and speed of medical services. It is also very helpful in creating nationwide statistics and national demographics for particular time periods, as EMRs can effectively be connected together, and their details shared across many devices simultaneously.
• ICD-10 – ICD-10, or the International Statistical Classification of Diseases, is a computerized medical classification compiled by WHO (World Health Organization). It contains a list of known diseases, their symptoms, any related abnormal findings and other related information compiled in series of codes. Through the use of ICD-10, doctors around the world can successfully track new diagnoses and correctly identify diseases and symptoms in patients. The ICD-10 consists of twenty-two chapters, each specializing in different types of disease categories (i.e. Chapter 6 deals with diseases related to the nervous system, Chapter 9 with those related to the circulatory system, Chapter 10 with those related to the respiratory system, etc.).
• Telemedicine – This is the use of information technology and communication technology to provide medical assistance at a distance. Simply, this means that a patient can be treated despite being not in the same physical space as his physician (i.e. a patient living in a remote area is treated by a specialist residing in a major central hospital). This is a revolutionary innovation which enables the many unnoticed patients in rural areas to receive treatment, and also save lives which would have been impossible to save in emergencies and critical care.
There are many more innovative technological inventions in the field of health and medicine. This should be clear enough by the fact that in a hospital, it is almost impossible to see a place which does not have some sort of electronic equipment. After all, be it CAT, ECG, MRI or any other hospital equipment – they are all possible thanks to the field of information technology!