The Evolution of Health Care Paper and Timeline, Research Paper Example

The current state of the healthcare system has been instrumental in shaping how organizations manage their resources in response to the call for improvements in healthcare delivery. One of the most important factors to consider in evaluating an organization’s response to healthcare trends is their capacity to integrate technology and electronic medical records systems to improve efficiency and the overall delivery of care to patients. Developing a successful approach to technology must be integrated not only in electronic medical records, but also in equipment and testing for a variety of illnesses. The organization must continue to explore these trends and how to best integrate technology-based solutions into their current practice methods to promote high quality and increased efficiency so that their patients are provided with optimal tools for diagnosis and treatment to promote a successful recovery in less time.

The integration of technology into healthcare systems has grown over several decades, with new advancements continuing to emerge on a regular basis to improve the delivery of healthcare for patients. One technology that is new and relevant to Mayo Clinic is mobile imaging, which has evolved in conjunction with DICOM Grid to provide the following tool: “a workflow engine that enables the routing and sharing of medical images and related data over both local and wide-area networks. This helps enable large multi-hospital institutions such as Mayo Clinic to access and share medical images with physicians across a variety of mobile platforms” (Miliard, 2012). This tool is likely to provide a successful platform for expanding image sharing between physicians across different locations and serves as an opportunity to expand imaging capabilities for the Mayo Clinic and its partners (Miliard, 2012). This alternative will play a role in an already successful series of technology-based solutions that the Mayo Clinic has developed offer their patients to improve diagnostic capabilities and efficiency in different ways.  The delivery of cost effective and efficient healthcare solutions depends upon these tools to improve patient outcomes.

The transition to mobile imaging is still in its early stages at the Mayo Clinic; however, this tool will enable physicians to obtain images and other scans via iPad and other devices with browsers (Tee, 2012). This tool will provide physicians and providers to share medical images quickly so that patient care and treatment is optimized as best as possible (Tee, 2012). This type of resource will encourage physicians to obtain images and to share with other specialists or colleagues to obtain sound and reasonable clinical advice regarding a patient’s treatment plan (Tee, 2012). It is expected that this type of resource will reduce delays associated with obtaining images for diagnostic evaluations and will improve the optimization of resources that physicians and organizations have at their disposal (Tee, 2012). This type of system is not only technologically advanced, but it also demonstrates the capacity of a large organization such as the Mayo Clinic to improve the quality of care for patients by sharing necessary patient information with ease (Tee, 2012).

The mobile imaging technology demonstrates the capacity of the Mayo Clinic to improve the quality of patient care by reducing the lag time in obtaining and reviewing patient scans. This is a critical tool to enable the organization to better capture patient images in a mobile format and to use those images to optimize the diagnosis and treatment plan. Although this tool is in the pilot stage, it is nonetheless important in providing physicians with almost immediate images and scans that are essential to patient care diagnostics and delivery. Therefore, there is less time wasted in diagnosing a patient incorrectly or inaccurately and more time spent on the appropriate diagnosis and treatment plan. This will enable the physician to use resources wisely through an organized workflow chain using the Mayo Clinic network (PR Newswire, 2012). The quality of care must be improved at all levels, and one of the key weaknesses of many healthcare organizations is the amount of time that is wasted by waiting for test results and imaging scans under traditional practices. Therefore, this transition to a mobile imaging platform is likely to provide a significant advantage for the organization in capturing images quickly so that a diagnosis will be made and treatment will begin without delays, which will enable patient care to be more effective and of a higher quality (PR Newswire, 2012).

In recent years, the availability and efficiency of mobile technologies has improved time management and cost effectiveness for many people across a variety of business areas. The healthcare industry has embraced these changes in significant ways and has sought to improve cost effectiveness at a higher level due to changing regulations and insurance challenges. The use of mobile technologies has been a driving force in expanding social media to allow companies to be more efficient and more visible to the public. Healthcare is no different and the industry has taken advantage of these opportunities in many different ways. The Mayo Clinic has emerged as one of the most important and influential leaders in this area and strives to expand its visibility and presence in the healthcare arena at a consistent level. Mobile imaging aligns effectively with these objectives and supports the organization’s capacity to provide high quality healthcare to all patients across all specialties.

From a team-based perspective, the availability of mobile imaging technology is a critical advantage for physicians, given their responsibility to many patients at once and the necessity to improve diagnostic capabilities. Therefore, the delivery of healthcare continues to flourish at the Mayo Clinic for physicians who utilize this medical imaging tool. Although the tool is in the pilot stage, it will provide an effective resource in order to determine its applicability to a wider audience base for physicians across many different specialties. This change will enable healthcare teams to obtain images more quickly and efficiently using mobile technologies so that a diagnosis and treatment plan may begin. This provides a higher level of efficiency for the team and supports the demand for a higher quality approach to healthcare delivery for all patients in the Mayo Clinic system. Similar advancements have been made in recent years which coincide with this new development at Mayo Clinic, including mobile web access to neurological scans to diagnose such conditions as strokes (Waxer, 2010). These mobile technologies have appeared to improve physician response times and diagnostic tools for Mayo Clinic physicians and are expected to increase as emerging mobile-based technologies come to fruition and are expanded throughout the Mayo Clinic System.

The timeline for this technology is recent and is still in the pilot stages at Mayo Clinic for use with its physician base; however, it is important to recognize its potential value for the Mayo Clinic and its patient population across divisions and specialties where patients require timely diagnoses. The timeline is as follows:

September 20, 2012: DICOM Grid made the announcement that it had entered into a collaborative agreement with Mayo Clinic to expand the development of a mobile image viewer using iPad and other mobile devices which use web browsers (PR Newswire, 2012)

Fourth Quarter 2012: The mobile image viewer will be rolled out to physicians working at the Mayo Clinic facility in Rochester, MN (PR Newswire, 2012)

2013: Upon an anticipated successful pilot study at Mayo Clinic, DICOM Grid plans to rollout the mobile imaging technology to other organizations throughout the United States (PR Newswire, 2012)

References

Miliard, M. (2012). Mayo Clinic, DICOM Grid collaborate on mobile imaging. Retrieved from http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/mayo-clinic-dicom-grid-collaborate-mobile-imaging

PR Newswire (2012). DICOM Grid collaborates with Mayo Clinic on mobile image viewing technology. Retrieved from http://www.marketwatch.com/story/dicom-grid-collaborates-with-mayo-clinic-on-mobile-image-viewing-technology-2012-09-20

Tee, D. (2012). DICOM Grid collaborates with Mayo Clinic to begin pilot of mobile image viewing technology. Retrieved from http://www.dicomgrid.com/press/press-releases/dicom-grid-collaborates-with-mayo-clinic-to-begin-pilot-of-mobile-image-viewing-technology.html

Waxer, C. (2010). How Mayo Clinic doctors use smartphones to diagnose patients. Retrieved from http://www.cio.com/article/630200/How_Mayo_Clinic_Doctors_Use_Smartphones_to_Diagnose_Patients