Enhancing quality and controlling costs: using Internet technology to apply workflow to health care.

Abstract

The pressures associated with the competitive, quickly changing health care marketplace require the use of all available tools to deliver the highest quality care at the lowest cost. Workflow, as employed by other industries, delivers significant increases in both productivity and quality of services. Likewise, the application of automated workflow techniques to the health care industry offers measurable and immediate benefits. The very nature of a workflow product requires that it be available as widely as possible and be customized to fit the working patterns of the people who use it. To gain the advantages of customization and wide platform access, it is mandatory that the burgeoning technologies of the Internet be used in the creation of any modern networked computer application. Automated health care workflow provides the necessary information technology for caregivers to deliver efficient and effective high-quality care.