Healthcare advancement with Technology

Personal safety and medical care in the U.S, along with many other major industries are growing in the information technology department. Information technology, in the medical care industry has given way to, “mass customization”, which gives dependability and flexibility to the personalized needs and wants of every customer. I would say that health care is currently falling into the two disciplines of product leadership and customer intimacy. Health and medical care should strive to provide the best products, service enhancement and product offering, while also providing the best overall solution to individual customers, focusing on customer relations, marketing support, and personalization. Information technology is the driving factor of medical care becoming more efficient and effective.

            Medical care is a crucial part of society that requires a great amount of individualization that is only made possible with computers and technology. Medical care has come a long way in the past decade and with the advancement of information technology such as computers, software, and databases, the risk of harm caused by medical care should be significantly less. The main ways Information Technology reduces errors is by preventing them, providing quick responses to adverse events, and by storing and tracking these events to improve the effectiveness of treatments. Operational systems should be the norm for health care to process and document medical safety problems. This would help modern medicine improve in quality and quantity.

            Health care should not be taken lightly, and it should not be the focus of health care companies to provide the cheapest functional medical care. Operational excellence is a viable solution to certain products and services, but not the medical care field. While reducing the cost and increasing efficiency is an important aspect of medical care, the most important aspect should be to provide the best total solution and best products catering to individual’s needs. Harm caused by medical care has become increasingly scrutinized in recent times, because of the advancement of information technology.

            Since the emergence of Obamacare and government provided health care, smaller startup health insurance companies have had a harder time finding competitive advantage due to regulations and the buying power of the larger firms. This has created an oligopoly of the top medical care firms, while there are many small ones. While some would argue that more competition and not less is better, recent mergers are proving that the health care industry is moving towards less competition. With the recent merger of CVS Health with Aetna and Express scripts with Cigna, the large health insurers are combining with the largest drug retailers. While this will keep cost up, I think the competition will be competitive enough to keep prices in check. I think with less cost competition, health care firms can focus on improving the quality and reliability of service.

Source:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa020847