Role of Information and Communication Technologies

Abstract

The previously predicted widespread deployment and use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in health care is still unmet. This chapter describes the promises and challenges of the use of ICT in health care. The use of ICT can improve clinician awareness of fall risk-increasing drugs. Computer-assisted prescribing can potentially exert a positive impact on drug selection. Several issues conspire against a successful utilization of ICT in health care: alert fatigue, during which users bypass or ignore the annoying computer-generated messages, the difficulty in sharing electronic health information due to a lack of standards, problems associated with data of unclear meaning, lack of training to effectively use ICT and awareness of its limitations, and impacts on workflow and high costs. Delays in knowledge transfer, which can take up to 17 years, are a trait of our current health-care systems that ICT can potentially improve. Sharing of global knowledge in a timely fashion, and reminding clinicians at the point of care of the best practices, could usher in a new era of safer health care with less falls.