Health Information Technology: A Few Years Of Magical Thinking?

Abstract

One of the biggest obstacles to expanding the use of information technology (IT) in health care may be the current narrow focus on how to stimulate its adoption. The challenge of thinking of IT as a tool to improve quality requires serious attention to transforming the U.S. health care system as a whole, rather than simply computerizing the current setup. Proponents of health IT must resist "magical thinking," such as the notion that technology will transform our broken system, absent integrated work on policy or incentives. The alternative route to transforming the system sets all of its sights on the destination. [Health Affairs 27,no. 5

TEMPEST: An integrative model for health technology assessment

“…Future issues of Health Policy and Technology will include crosscountry comparisons of TEMPEST data points to give examples of current and potential benefits and barriers. apparent that, while there are 'serious structural barriers to the use of IT that have nothing to do with technologyylegal and financial incentives provide little motivation to share information across institutions, which is critical to improving patient outcomes as well as efficiency' [16].…”

“…This has led to observations that, 'It is impossible to separate technology and policy in networked systemsyStandards in health IT have been likened to construction specifications for building the interstate highly system. Yet it turns out that an explicit policy framework is as important as any effort to create technical standards' [16].…”

Moving Toward Performance-Based, Managed Care Contracting in Child Welfare: Perspectives on Staffing, Financial Management, and Information Technology

“…While much has been written in the behavioral and physical health care sectors regarding the financial management and information technology needs for transitioning to managed care and incentive-based models (Diamond & Shirky, 2008;Kongstvedt, 2001), little information from the child welfare field exists on this question. In order to gauge the degree of financial risk in a performance-based or managed care contracting environment, Wernet (1999) and Mordock (1996) posit that child welfare managers need to track information concerning frequency of service use and cost per service over time.…”

The rhetoric and reality of e-health: a critical assessment of the benefits of e-health in primary health care

“…Furthermore, governments can be ambivalent as evidenced by the recent reduction in the number of video consultations resulting from government changes to funding for these services (Wade 2013). In considering the expansion of ICT use within the health system, we agree it is important to resist the 'magical thinking' that installation of electronic clinical and administrative systems can by itself transform the health care system and compensate for its structural problems (including Australia's Federal-State funding divide or the lack of any requirement for citizens to belong to only one general practice at a time) and we need to address difficult challenges such as how to motivate ICT adoption among care providers, consumers and carers to achieve better health and health care (Diamond and Shirkey 2008). Our own work and that of others has shown that Australians from lower income and disadvantaged backgrounds face challenges to using ICT in general, as well as for health purposes, and may need intensive support if they are to become the 'empowered consumers' envisioned by the E-Health Strategy (e.g.…”