Could Babies Born Today Live to 150? Research Paper Example

I believe that the most important milestone in the evolution of health care informatics was the invention and development of digital computer capabilities as they relate to information and communication (ICT). According to Haux (2010), this “enabled a significant development in information processing methodology” and this is the basis for extraordinary developments in health care (p. 600). Technological advances in the field of medicine and health care have certainly evolved in regard to the way that health care is delivered. ICT is a key component for health care delivery systems and public health on a global scale. ICT is an effective source that improves health care access for those countries that have communities that are geographically isolated; it is also an effective means of providing support to healthcare professionals, sharing important health information and data, as well as capturing, storing, interpreting, and managing data. ICT facilitates health care communication and the processing and transmisison of health-related information through electronic means (Lewis, Hodge, Gamage, & Whittaker, 2011).

Some aspects of healthcare that are enchanced through ICT, as an important milestone in health care informatics evolution, include supporting health care decisions on ordering drugs, coordinating source systems, efficient hospital administration, being able to electronically transfer lab results and patient records, Web-based data entry and reporting, telemedicine case conferencing, and mobile phone notifications of disease outbreaks (Lewis, Hodge, Gamage, & Whittaker, 2011). These are just some of the benefits that ICT has brought to the field of health care informatics.

Personally, I believe that ICT is the cornerstone of the evolution of health care informatics because it has allowed medical science to advance into areas that have and will change the course of medical history. For example, the unmapping of the DNA gene code was an extraordinary breakthrough in medical technlogy that has allowed for new therapies and medicines to tackle health issues, diseases, and conditions that were never able to be handled before, such as stem cell technology and life span extension research. I recently read online that by the year 2029, medical scientists predict that medical technology will be advanced enough to extend life expectancy well beyond what it is today, and predict that the first person to live to be at least 150 years old has already been born (Glor, 2012). This level of medical and technological advancement would not be possible without ICT because communication technology is needed to facilitate effective and efficient processes for scientific research and development, as well as fostering funding initiatives for such research that would include a great deal of communication with world investors through electronic means.

Through the use of ICT, health care developments and research has significantly improved, as well as implications for the future of health care research. For example, it is difficult to imagine performing diagnostic procedures without diagnostic imaging tools that use computer technology, or it is equally as difficult to imagine therapeutic practices without the use of software as a computer-assisted tool for checking medication interactions or assisting with surgical procedures that would be impossible to perform with just the naked eye. These are just some of the reasons why I believe that ICT is the most important breakthrough in the evolution of health care informatics.

References

Glor, J. (2012, February 9). Could babies born today live to 150? Retrieved from CBS News: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/could-babies-born-today-live-to-150/

Haux, R. (2010). Medical informatics: Past, present, future. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 79(1), 599-610.

Lewis, D., Hodge, N., Gamage, D., & Whittaker, M. (2011). Understanding the role of technology in health information systems. School of Population Health, University of Queensland. Health Information Systems Knowledge Hub. Retrieved from http://www.uq.edu.au/hishub/docs/WP_17.pdf