IT has begun

Congress appears to be on the verge of passing landmark Healthcare reform legislation which proponents argue will significantly improve healthcare for all Americans, in part by increasing the role of information technology in healthcare. Many understand that while passage of the bill may be eminent, achieving the results may yet be several years down the road. Still according to ABC News and MedPage Today, who surveyed more than 800 medical specialists and medical historians, four of the ten most important medical advances of the decade involved or were closely tied to Information Technology (IT). Coming in at #10, the development of functional MRI (fMRI) technology, allows scientists to “read minds” by tracking changes in the oxygen levels and blood flow to the brain. At #8, robotic surgery has enabled whole new worlds of minimally invasive surgery (surgery through tiny incisions) and remote surgery (where surgeon and patient may be separated by hundreds or thousands of miles). As such, patient recovery times are often shorter and less painful while in addition, many patients now can have access to surgeries that were not previously available. The second most important advance of the decade was the use of Health Information Technology by patients and providers. The impact of HIT in healthcare has already been significant, even without the new opportunities created by healthcare reform. These include enabling a physician to look up needed clinical information right at the bedside, to patients receiving bar codes when they are admitted to the Emergency Room, clinic or hospital. These bar codes follow the patient and appear on all patient related materials thereby significantly reducing misidentifications, mistakes with blood transfusions, IV infusions and a host of other potential medical errors. Finally, the most important medical advance of the decade was the completion of the Human Genome Project, which for the first time allowed scientists to read the complete set of human genetic information and begin to discover what our roughly 23,000 genes do. A feat made possible by the internet, advances in IT and computational biology. Soon, the final leg of the technology revolution stool will be completed. The development of mobile, wearable, web based, pervasive and ubiquitous computing tools that help patients and thier caregivers better manage their health or healthcare activities and decisions, will empower patients, not just their providers, to achieve thier health and healthcare goals while better managing the realities of daily life at home, school or on vacation. Admittedly, we still have a ways to go to reach this goal, but perhaps we can take solace in the fact that according to this group of medical experts, the IT revolution has already begun.