Dean, Kevin

Abstract:

IT in healthcare has been very slowly adopted over the last 30 years compared to other industries; sadly in many cases IT has been seen as peripheral to the delivery of care. The use of the term E-Health to manage the newly-popular enablement of healthcare by information technology cannot help successful adoption. Experience elsewhere tells us that treating information technology as a "bolt-on" addition to normal ways of working squanders the opportunities for quality and cost improvements provided by using the power of connecting islands of information and automation to change the way care is delivered - cutting cost, increasing access and quality. Other industries have realised that using connected IT to power the business needed to be part of "normal" business - just another tool like their machines, warehouses and fork-lift trucks. This realisation that E-Health is actually more powerful when it becomes part of, and supports all daily business, is still to come in many health economies.

The real challenge for healthcare in the 21st Century is not delivering E-Health, but connecting the disparate islands of care, information, knowledge and organisation that most of us encounter when we need help; and re-engineering the processes that form the patient's journey. Furthermore, there are other connections to be made - seamlessly linking healthcare education for citizens, ongoing professional learning for clinicians, the availability and use of new knowledge and the efficient operation of healthcare organisations across the traditional organisational boundaries.

The healthcare industry therefore is at a crucial point - can indeed healthcare processes be re-designed so information can be used to connect the journey through care, creating better experiences for the patient, fewer errors and lower costs? Can we create Connected Health?