We believe that technology applications in health care provisions have the potential to improve patient safety, efficiency, quality, timeliness, quality, and cost. Nonetheless, we fail to consider that technology may also bring challenges to healthcare provisions. Therefore, in order to realize the benefits of technology in health care provisions, we have to account for some aspects. First, we have to consider ergonomic standards of equipment regarding human factors. Second, maintenance practices of technology equipment. Third, we must ensure effective provisions of technology interface to patients. Finally, we have to put appropriate implementation plans into practice.
Technology can reduce errors and lessen the effects of errors by reducing occurrences of such errors or adverse events and enhancing the detection of errors before they happen. Effective implementation and usage of technology can ensure that healthcare facilities yield positive benefits to both patients and care providers as well as to the organization.
Lyhne, Georgiou, Marks, Tariq, and Westbrook found out that provisions of robust technology systems could help in the identification of important and possible sub-optimal practices during patient handover processes. In addition, they also noted that technology provided valuable evidence, which could be suitable for planning and improving technology implementation. Therefore, care providers could identify gaps in “information flow and potential impacts on resident safety”.
Handel, Wears, Nathanson, and Pines based their study on Federal healthcare reforms, which focused on the integration of technology into the healthcare system of the US. They observed that technology could be useful in improving “future quality and safety of emergency department (ED) care”. They also highlighted how technology improved order entry, clinical decision support, and patient tracking systems. However, these researchers identified possible challenges in “interoperability, patient flow and integration into clinical work, real-time decision support, hand off, safety-critical computing and the interaction between IT systems and clinical workflows”.