Health and Social Care: The Role of ICT in Modern Healthcare Systems

This report examines the transformative impact of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in health and social care. It explores the various applications of ICT, including word processing software, databases, and imaging software, and their benefits for both patients and healthcare professionals. The report highlights how ICT enhances patient care by meeting individual needs, improving patient knowledge, and facilitating real-time communication. It also details the advantages for care workers, such as improved quality of services, time savings, and reduced malpractice claims. Furthermore, it discusses the benefits for healthcare organizations, including improved business administration, cost reduction, and collaboration with external agencies. The report also addresses the legal considerations of using ICT, including health and safety, data confidentiality, data accuracy, and data security. Overall, the report provides a comprehensive overview of the role of ICT in modern healthcare systems, emphasizing its potential to improve efficiency, quality, and patient outcomes.

Running head: HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE
Health and social care
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Task 3
Use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in health and social care
Together with digital revolution, Information and communication technology (ICT)
applications are at present bringing in significant transformation in the delivery of health and
social care services. Technology at the contemporary era aims at increasing the productivity in a
number of sectors of the economy, including healthcare. Organizations of health care industry
are making considerable investments in ICT for promoting growth, and adopting innovations.
Since the patient population is ageing, care systems are under constant pressure to deliver best
care services and achieve higher patient satisfaction, and ICT plays a major role in this regard.
Information and communication technology is increasingly becoming an integral part of health
and social care settings for delivering safe and high quality care services to the patient
population. Some of the standard ICT software used in the healthcare industry includes word
processing software, databases, spreadsheets, internet, information retrieval systems and imaging
software (Zelmer et al. 2017).
Fig: Application of ICT in health and social care.

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Fig: Important ICT applications in healthcare
WordprocessingsoftwareDatabasesSpreadsheetsInternetInformationretrievealsystemImagingsoftware

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Fig: Evolution of ICT in Health and Social Care
Benefits of using ICT for users
 Meeting individual needs- ICT in health and social care ensures that the individual needs of
the patient population are met in an effective manner. For health and social care professionals, it has
always been challenging to cater to the varying needs that patient present with. Services augmented by
implemented by ICT would enable precise form of care to be given to the patients who come from
varied backgrounds and with different health conditions. ICT ensures that patient data is easily
accessed and analyzed for deciding upon the best care practices that can address the comprehensive
needs of individual patients.
 Patient knowledge- Integration of ICT in health and social care allows patients presenting with
different care needs to get a visual perspective on their health condition. Visual representations using
information technology can aid in patient knowledge of their health as the systems are able to develop
an advanced way of recording, analyzing and understanding the situation. In the absence of advanced
technologies, patients are not informed about the frequently asked questions for health improvement.

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 Communication- With the advent of ICT in health and social care, it has now become
possible for patients to communicate with the healthcare professionals in real time.
Communication technologies provide a convenient way of communicating needs to the care
providers that ensure urgent care delivery possible. Patients can convey about health-related
queries that can be resolved prior to challenges faced in terms of patient care (Celi et al. 2017).
Benefits of using ICT for care workers
 Improved quality of services- Automated information systems help in improvement of
quality of care since they have far-reaching capabilities. Complete knowledge based information
systems help care workers to provide optimal quality of services to the diverse patient population.
Information systems also aid in a robust decision support function so that professionals can engage
in accurate decision making process for intervention administration.
 Time savings- Health care professionals report that electronic prescriptions and clinical
data management saves considerable shift time. This on the whole is effective in reducing efforts
of the professionals, thereby reducing burnout and stress. It has been known that reduce stress and
burnout leads to better service delivery on the whole.
 Less cases of malpractice claims- The number of malpractice reduces significantly when
advanced technologies are integrated into service systems. Care professionals are placed at a
position to engage in decision making process as per their convenience that ensures that no
malpractices are adhered to in course of action (Haluza and Jungwirth 2015).

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Benefits of using ICT for organizations
 Business administration-Through the utilization of the information and communication
technologies, a uniform and standard process of administration can be enabled within an organization.
In most of the healthcare settings, resource allocation remains fragmented. Information systems
ensure that the setting can engage in proper resource allocation. In addition, a skilled workforce can
be built effectively within the setting.
 Decrease in costs- When a healthcare professional provide services through information
technology system, cost effective diagnosis and treatment is possible. In general, workstations are
linked to a comprehensive electronic medical record system. Total charges for admission of a patient
would have been more if different workstations were used for input of inpatient orders within a
setting.
 Collaboration with external agencies- With a strong communication technology in place,
health care settings can meet the needs of external agencies that work in collaboration for improved
service provision. This implies that the respective care setting can work in coordination of external
service providers that are directed towards the same aim and objective as the care setting (Abdelhak,
Grostick and Hanken 2014).

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Legal considerations for using ICT
The benefits of ICT in healthcare have been well documented and acknowledged in the recent
past. It is known that ICT can enable better access to accurate and complete care services that are
beneficial for both service users and providers. Nevertheless, successful implementation of ICT in
settings entails legal principles to be maintained in practice. Ethical considerations are pivotal for
aggregating information and processing them in an accessible form to service users (Conte et al. 2017).
 Health and safety considerations- Regulations are to be maintained within healthcare settings for
ensuring that health and safety of care providers are maintained appropriately. The primary concerns for
professionals include repetitive strain injury, eye related concerns, and postural concerns. Health care
settings are to ensure that exposure to the risk of such health and safety considerations are minimal.
Organizations are further accountable for ensuring electrical safety, heat and humidity, lighting, noise,
space and comfort considerations.
 Data confidentiality- Confidentiality refers to the disclosure of information to only authorized
personnel. Health and social care settings have the obligation of disclosing health information accessed
through ICT to only those who are authorized and applicable. The act is recognized the privileged
communication between the patient and the service provider in a professional relationship.
 Data accuracy- Health care settings further have the obligation of maintaining accurate and
updated patient health information. This resolves issues related to role of patient in accessing information
that can guide further interventions addressing health needs. In case accurate and updated data is not
available, chances of service errors is high.
 Data security- Data security refers to the protection of health information so as to confine access
to data in a strict manner. As the utilization of electronic health record systems is growing, a continuous
need is felt to regulate transmission of data between terminals in a care setting (Weaver et al. 2016).

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References
Abdelhak, M., Grostick, S. and Hanken, M.A., 2014. Health Information-E-Book: Management
of a Strategic Resource. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Celi, L.A.G., Fraser, H.S., Osorio, J.S., Paik, K. and Nikore, V. eds., 2017. Global health
informatics: principles of eHealth and mHealth to improve quality of care. MIT Press.
Conte, R., Sansone, F., Grande, A., Tonacci, A., Napoli, F., Pala, A.P., Raciti, M. and Landi, P.,
2017, June. Development of an integrated ICT system for data production, standardization and
elaboration in health & care. In E-Health and Bioengineering Conference (EHB), 2017 (pp. 321-
324). IEEE.
Haluza, D. and Jungwirth, D., 2015. ICT and the future of health care: aspects of health
promotion. International journal of medical informatics, 84(1), pp.48-57.
Weaver, C.A., Ball, M.J., Kim, G.R. and Kiel, J.M., 2016. Healthcare information management
systems. Cham: Springer International Publishing.
Zelmer, J., Ronchi, E., Hyppönen, H., Lupiáñez-Villanueva, F., Codagnone, C., Nøhr, C.,
Huebner, U., Fazzalari, A. and Adler-Milstein, J., 2017. International health IT benchmarking:
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