The Pediatric Sector Essay -- Health, Pharmaceutical, HIPAA

The Pediatric sector is one of the major economic contributors for health care industry (Slonim, LaFleur, Ahmed, & Joseph, 2003). The major cause of pediatric deaths is due to lack of interoperability among pediatric clinics. Medical errors are very common in pediatric departments. According to study by Kozer, Berkovitch, and Koren (2006) most of the drugs for children under age 12 are off-labeled and there is no standard dosing available. â€Å"Off-label use is a practice of prescribing pharmaceuticals for an unapproved indication† (Stanford, 2008). Some medications are adjusted according to body weight and nature of children. It is also very difficult to find medical reactions in children compared to older people. Some drugs referred by physicians needs to be diluted and doses needs to be calculated before they are given to children (Kozer, Berkovitch, & Koren, 2006). Calculation errors can end up in overdose of medicines, which can result in deaths (Kozer, Berkovitch, & Kor en). There are many reasons for the medical errors in health care industry. In year 2000, a study by IOM reported that there is economic loss from medical errors due to which health care industry was in a crisis (Kohn, 2000). It was found that even with the advancement of technological innovations health care is not utilizing technologies like electronic format of records. According to law set by US congress, President Bush declared that â€Å"every American should have an electronic medical record within 2014.† (Pear, 2007). The goal was to use technological innovation like Electronic health record system (EHR) across the country for all health care departments (Bush, 2004). With change in presidency the goal became more as a requirement. President Obama started intr... ...nt challenge faced by health care sector is the resistance to adopt newer technologies (Gupta & Murtaza, 2009). This is more common with major clinics and hospitals as they have to change the clinical workflows. Even if there are many benefits in using new technologies there are major challenges faced by the physicians, nurses and staff in redoing their workflow (Ilie, Slyke, Parikh, & Courtney, 2009). This study will be focusing on the pediatric departments with in the city of Chicago and analyzes the perceptions of using newer technologies in the work. Even if there are mandatory laws from government to move towards the EHR systems, the health care can push back with the challenges they will face when moving to a new technology. The study should also provide useful insights on how health care officials perceive the challenge of computerizing medical information.