The Impact of Information Technology on the Healthcare Industry Report

This report examines the significant role of information technology (IT) within the healthcare industry. It begins with an executive summary highlighting the increasing sophistication of cyber threats targeting healthcare, despite industry awareness and investment in cybersecurity measures. The intr...Read More

Running head: HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY
HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY
Name of Student
Name of University
Author’s Note

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Executive summary
The industry that has been chosen for this particular assignment includes healthcare
industry. It was assumed that cyber criminals would get even more creative despite of the
awareness among the industry at the level of executive for the necessary funding that
would be required for the purpose of protecting themselves. There are various ways by
which the usage of information technology has been beneficial for the industry of
healthcare. One of the ways include training provided to the staffs, IT could help surgeons
in providing trainings in realistic as well as low risk simulated environment. There are
various ways by which the healthcare industries could use IT in an effective manner,
inventors of information technologies that are associated to home grounded health care,
usually have incomplete or inadequate direction related to product content, accessibility,
structure as well as usability in order to inform invention or development of the personal
health records

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Introduction
Information technology is being used in almost every industry. The industry that has
been chosen for this particular assignment includes healthcare industry. The new that has
been chosen for this assignment presents some recent information technology security
breaches that had been occurred in the healthcare industry. It presents the fact that
healthcare had been a lucrative target for various cyber criminals in the year of 2017 with
the phishing emails, weaponized ransom ware, misconfigured cloud storage buckets which
dominated the entire year. These threats had continued in the year of 2018 as well. And it
was assumed that cyber criminals would get even more creative despite of the awareness
among the industry at the level of executive for the necessary funding that would be
required for the purpose of protecting themselves. Some information technology security
threats that are mentioned in this news include phishing attack breach 20,000 Catawba
valley patient records, data breaches had affected around 75,000 in federal ACA portal.
This assignment describes regarding the data breached caused in the industry of
healthcare in a detailed manner.
Body
The healthcare industry requires the usage of information technology because with
the advancement of the technology has made it important to use information technology in
almost every operation carried out by the health care industry. There are various ways by
which the usage of information technology has been beneficial for the industry of
healthcare. One of the ways include training provided to the staffs, IT could help surgeons
in providing trainings in realistic as well as low risk simulated environment. Some
technologies in information technology such as virtual reality helps in maintaining physical
as well as mental health of the patients, it offers therapeutic potential as well as
rehabilitation for the acute pain along with anxiety disorders. Usage of information
technology helps in providing cost effective as well as efficient tool for the purpose of
treatment and teaching.
IT is important for survival of the business because information technology helps in
enhancing precision, control and flexibility, it comes with lesser complications like
infections along with resulting in less obvious because it is minimally invasive. Besides
these some technologies provide unique benefits to the industry. Some of the technologies
help professionals in detecting the disease of the patients and hence provide medication to
them according to their age, seriousness of the condition and some more factors,
information technology also helps in maintaining the record of the patients along with the
details of their medication. This helps people easy to access their data.
In order to apply IT into the business proper planning is one of the essential parts.
In order to implement information technology along with achieving its benefits, a full proof
planning is very important to make. The next important component is designing, almost
every department requires to use information technology hence the designing of the entire
plan is very important. Having hold of the equipment’s is considered as one more
important factor that needs to be taken care of when information technology is used in the
industry. Besides these, training to the staffs is also a major component that is to be
considered in the usage of IT in healthcare. Training is important because without it staffs
might not be able to use the benefits provided by information technology implementation in
an effective manner.
Healthcare business uses information technology in numerous ways, these ways
include being a main source of the medical information. It also provides a better quality of
patient care along with less suffering. Usage of social media in the healthcare business
helps the institutes to promote the services’ that are provided to patients. Hence it helps

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them in attracting the patients that have those diseases but did not have any idea where
they are treated. The most obvious ways by which technology has changes the healthcare
industry includes the fact the it has provided various new machines, treatments and
medicines which helps in saving life as well as improve the chance of recovering billions of
patients. Sophisticated practices for medical use helps various patients heal directly. New
technologies have helped patients heal in a direct manner. New technologies had
improved research so that experts are allowed to make the entire process of healthcare
even more effective.
Benefits and advantages provided by IT to the health industry include health
records that are electronic in nature, maintenance of data related to patient in an electronic
format has become a requirement for the healthcare industry. This is because
maintenance of medical records every day in a physical form would be very time taking,
besides this, it requires a huge amount of effort as well as resources. It decreases the
possibility of any sort of human errors along with the chances of losing important data
related to patients considering the fact that risks are associates with it. IoT in healthcare is
another advantages that is provided by the usage of information technology within the
industry. IoT in healthcare industry usually meets the necessary demands of various
patients who are informed on a particular side and hence reduce the time needed for the
purpose of monitoring patients by the doctors. It enables evidence based as well as
treatments that are customized for various patients and hence ensure shortening the
treatment cycle along with widening the coverage of patients for the providers of
healthcare. It also provides early detection of numerous diseases. As well as diagnose
serious medical conditions, patients are allowed to begin their medications faster for
avoiding further complications.
Risks brought about by information technology in the healthcare industry includes
cyber risk, the move of healthcare industry to healthcare records that are electronic in
nature had created new exposures to patient privacy, this is because records are easily
accessed with the use of various vendors, consultants and many more third parties for the
purpose of operation that are efficient in nature and targeted by the cyber criminals.
Besides this, healthcare organizations coma across a huge amount of exposure to various
cyber risks which could have serious impacts on the operations such as shutting down
health related critical systems. Data breaches as well as disruptions in network has the
ability to jeopardize a particular financial stability of the organization along with reputation
and security. Standard general liability policies does not usually cover threats that are
allied with various cyber as well as exposures that are technology related. Cyber liability
insurance could address reporting gaps along with allowing corporations for transferring
risks that are associated with the cyber like patient privacy as well as notifications,
management of crisis, expenses of forensic analysis along with various governing fines,
legal costs and protection payments. Cyber hacks as well as data breaches are a major
problem that has been faced by the healthcare industry recently.
Health industry can monitor and manage information technology services using
various ways, the amount of risks that are faced by the industry impose a huge amount of
threat to the industry. It is very important that the organizations of healthcare to work
closely along with their insurance carrier for accessing this particular exposure and hence
develop effective strategies for risk management and hence ensure proper coverage has
been in place. In order to monitor the IT services provided to the healthcare industries the
organizations can build up a particular risk management team, this team would consist of
various risk managers, they would be trained in order to handle numerous issues in
various settings. The duties that would undertake by the risk managers would be dogged
by the particular organization. The professionals would work in various areas of the
medical administration, some of the administrations include financing, claims management

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and insurance, event as well as incident management, clinical research, emergency
preparedness, psychological as well as human healthcare. Nit every model would fit in all
the risk management explanation. Challenges that are faced by the administrations which
should be addressed in a particular risk assessment plan are patient safety mandatory
federal regulations, potential medical errors, existing as well as future policy, legislation
impacting the overall field of healthcare.
Conclusion
The usage of IT in the healthcare industry has brought about various advancements
in the business. The solutions that has been provided across the globe had helped in
making the healthcare services even better. The industry of information technology has
expended in an exponential manner since few decades. Various healthcare providers had
realized the actual role which technology could play early and hence adopt it intensively in
the operations for improving the process of patient care. IT in healthcare has improved the
process of patient care as well as worker efficiency. This as a result increases the
efficiency of the entire organization. The usage of information technology has made the
entire process of patient care even safer along with making it more reliable compared to
before. This assignment discusses regarding if the healthcare industry makes use of IT
services, it further discusses regarding the importance of IT in the industry of healthcare.
This assignment discusses regarding what is needed to apply IT into the business of
healthcare. It also discusses regarding the benefits as well as disadvantages provided by
IT to the healthcare organizations.
Recommendation
There are various ways by which the healthcare industries could use IT in an
effective manner, developers of the information technologies that are related to the
concept of home based health care, usually have incomplete or inadequate guidance
related to product content, accessibility, structure as well as usability in order to inform
innovation or the concept of development of the personal health histories or the access of
care receiver in the material in the form of electrical health records. Some more strategies
that could be used by health care industries for the purpose of using the IT services in an
effective manner include fostering a particular supportive culture for the purpose of safety
of diverse patient populations, adapt present systems to the better identification of various
medical errors, improve the process of reporting of medical errors, monitor the safety of
patients in a regular manner and take necessary steps for the purpose of improving the
entire process. Addressing the main cause for preventing medical errors among various
patients is also one of the recommendations that could be used by the healthcare
organisations. Some more recommendations that could be used by the health care
industry for the purpose of using IT services in an effective manner include undertaking
various strategies that could contribute in maintaining the confidentiality and safety of the
patients. This would not only help them in obtaining the most of the technology but also
gain the trust of the patients.

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