The World Wide Web in Healthcare

In healthcare today, the Internet is becoming more and more a superior tool that will greatly effect and improve the quality of healthcare. The article written by Kathryn E. Kerwin in the July/August 2002 issue of the Journal of Healthcare Management explains how not only professional staff such as physicians and administrators use the internet to increase quality and care, but also the patient.

The article mainly describes how the Internet has advantages in providing a better continuum of quality and care for all three of the above listed roles. The first of these three is the role of the Internet and the physician. One of the many ways for the Internet to benefit physicians is to increase the physician-patient relationship by being able to directly contact one another through e-mail. The use of email is convenient as well as efficient when it comes to helping patients. The Internet is also useful in obtaining lab results, treatment progress, or other resources that are useful to a physician.

The Internet is beneficial to administrators as well. The use of the Internet can reduce costs and increase security by eliminating all the paperwork that is handled by countless amounts of individuals. This paperwork and the people hired to organize it can increase your costs and they are also a security risk. Computers and the Internet can eliminate this and provide a more efficient way of exchanging information. E-mail also allows the administrator to be in contact with employees in a more consistent basis as well as outside individuals. This is a more efficient way of communicating.

For patients, the Internet allows them to look closer into the healthcare field than ever before. A patient can look up on the Internet illness, diseases, treatments, symptoms, pretty much anything that they need to know about most conditions. In having this information, shared decision making between patient and provider is becoming more commonplace. Not only can the patient look up medical information, but they can also look up information on medical facilities such as the grade of the facility, physicians that practice there, and health plans that are used. The Internet is becoming a great source for everyone involved in the health care system to have a greater sense of quality and care.

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