Information technology has revolutionised the way that companies operate, but in some sectors workers are finding it difficult to adapt to the IT age.
Paper has traditionally been used in the health care sector to record patient data, but the physical size of paper records makes the management and processing of the data difficult. The introduction of electronic health records (EHR) has allowed records to be stored electronically, not only saving space but also making data entry, data access, analysis and distribution much easier and faster.
Thomas Choi Kup-sze, assistant professor at Polytechnic University's School of Nursing and programme leader of its MSc in Health Informatics programme, said that medical records were no longer owned by physicians but were becoming patient-centred.
'All health care providers, physicians from different specialities or clinicians providing in-patient or out-patient care, access a common record for each individual patient,' he said. 'Diagnosis and treatments previously provided by other health care providers are readily available in a one-stop manner with EHR to assist in making better and faster judgments.'
This was one example of the way that IT was playing an increasingly important role in health care as health care workers made use of computerised information in their routine work.
But Dr Choi said that training and education in information technology did not receive enough attention in the health care domain. This made it difficult for workers to adapt to the use of IT in their daily work.
