Pediatric Informatics: Computer Applications in Child Health (Health ...

460 G.R. Kim and S.T. Weinberg
Lack of a consistent infrastructure to monitor/measure the quality and impact
of health interventions and to collect data easily, accurately and in a timely
fashion
Barriers to effective communication with patients and families due to language,
literacy, education, and cultural issues
Uncertainty and complexity in medical knowledge, decision making (in domains
such as pediatric oncology and rare diseases) and health care processes (such as
chemotherapy and clinical trials)
Conflicts in political and economic interests that de-prioritize the health needs
of children
35.2 The Roles of Information Technology
and Informatics in the Vision
35.2.1 Opportunities to Improve Pediatric Care
Information technology can help overcome these constraints by:
Providing access to timely, appropriate pediatric expertise by remote patients
and practitioners through communication and telemedicine applications
Empowering families and physicians to control and share health care information
in ways that strengthen the patient–family–pediatrician relationship,
through the development and use of interoperable electronic health records and
personal health records
Assuring real-time availability, integrity and confidentiality of patient health
information when and where it is needed (specialty clinics, emergency departments,
disaster situations) from wherever it is (hospital/laboratory/pharmacy
systems, regional health information organizations registries), coordinated and
managed through interoperable Medical Home information systems
Streamlining medical work by facilitating access to information, guiding clinical
choices, providing knowledge-based alerts and reminders 1 and other forms of
clinical decision support systems
Reducing errors by automating and standardizing of health care processes (such
as inpatient medication delivery) via order entry, transaction auditing, and error
tracking
35.2.2 Limitations of Information Technology in the Vision
Information technology alone cannot improve outcomes. Applications may fail for
many reasons, including organizational and personnel issues. 2 Fitting IT tools to
clinical tasks requires understanding how health care differs from other industries: