They are new, low-cost and useful but not yet widely used
Healthcare providers are missing many opportunities to deliver their
services in better ways by not adopting tried and tested new uses of
information and communications technologies, says Keith Clough.
ABSTRACT
The range and scope of procedures and technologies that support patients
and healthcare and socialcare professionals in the delivery of services is
expanding, but most of them are not yet being widely used. There are a
number of innovative uses of relatively low-cost equipment, which, if used
extensively, would help the NHS in the 21st century.
This article highlights some of these applications, which are currently
in use in at least (and often only) one site. They have been chosen from
part of a wider study entitled The impact of e-health and assistive
technologies on healthcare, which has been conducted by the e-Health
Innovation Professionals Group of IHM, ASSIST and the BCS HIF.
The article offers a foretaste of some of the likely conclusions from the
study and a few suggestions as to how the modernisation process could be
speeded up.
Br J Healthcare Comput Info Manage 2005; 22(2): 27–9. |
