Integrated healthcare information systems.

When it comes to electronic data processing in healthcare, we offer a guarded, but hopeful, prognosis. To be sure, the age of electronic information processing has hit healthcare. Employers, insurance companies, hospitals, physicians and a host of ancillary service providers are all being ushered into a world of high speed, high tech electronic information. Some are even predicting that the health information business will grow from $20 billion to over $100 billion in a decade. Yet, out industry lags behind other industries in its overall movement to the paperless world. Selecting and installing the most advanced integrated information system isn't a simple task, as we've seen. As in life, compromises can produce less than optimal results. Nevertheless, integrated healthcare systems simply won't achieve their goals without systems designed to support the operation of a continuum of services. That's the reality! It is difficult to read about the wonderful advances in other sectors, while realizing that many trees still fall each year in the name of the health care industry. Yes, there are some outstanding examples of organizations pushing the envelop in a variety of areas. Yet from a very practical standpoint, many (like our physician's office) are still struggling or are on the sidelines wondering what to do. Given the competitive marketplace, organizations without effective systems may not have long to wonder and wait.