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Research @ CHIDS
| Healthcare
Challenges |
It is estimated that between 44000 to 98000 Americans die
each year from preventable medical errors. One in seven primary
care visits is affected by missing information.
Approximately 80%
errors are initiated by miscommunication, misinformation in
medical record, misfiled or missing charts and inadequate
reminder systems. Lack of connectivity and shared knowledge can
cause duplicate tests to be ordered, resulting in unnecessary
expense and, occasionally, risk and pain. Handwritten
records—most notoriously, prescriptions—are easily misread
causing potential life threatening mistakes. |
It is widely recognized that today’s healthcare system faces many
challenges related to poor quality of care, medical errors and high costs. Many
of these problems can be mitigated through the availability of relevant and timely
information at the point of care, and through the application of advanced decision
and information technologies. CHIDS’ research aims at achieving this transformation
in healthcare practice and delivery and
moving
healthcare into the information age.
CHIDS is uniquely positioned in a leading business school and is the first research
center to actively study business phenomena and structural barriers associated with
health information technology. CHIDS research seeks to address health informatics
issues from a broad business perspective, rather than simply a policy or patient
care perspective. This encompasses a whole range of technology issues ranging from
interoperability, sharing information across organizational boundaries, creating
databases and data structures to store and manage health information, and information
security and privacy.
Incorporating new technologies into existing organizations and workflows is a complex
activity that poses significant challenges in the form of not only technical issues
but also organizational and behavioral concerns. Further, organizations must contend
with economic issues, such as the appropriate level of investment and the returns
it will generate. In addition to challenges that are common across industries, there
are specific healthcare-related issues such as patient privacy and the lack of standards.
Above everything, healthcare issues are more than simply academic – they can have
life and death implications. CHIDS aims to discover and leverage potential of information
technology to reduce, if not entirely eliminate, medical errors in healthcare delivery.
CHIDS' research portfolio consists of six major research domains: human factors,
HIT adoption and dissemination, health records and HIT interoperability, quality
and transparency, HIT value and economics, and Healthcare operations and data management.
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