Medical technology is valuable if the benefits of medical advances exceed the costs. The new releases in technology in the health environment have caused many positive advantages as well as challenges that they still facing.
Some of the advantages that the USA Healthcare system recently implemented was the use of Electronic Health records. This new technology can improve work practice, improve care processes, and impact on efficiency and productivity. Additionally, EHR technology provide physicians and other health allied providers with ready access to a patient medical history. In addition, electronic communication has improved the quality of service provided to the patients, but as well had helped the administrators to keep track of employee’s information, certification and licensures with the use of alerts.
On the other hand, one of the challenges that healthcare system is facing is the threat to privacy of patient information. For example, during a visit to the ER room or hospitalization, there are many users that will have access to your information, this can lead to a misuse of such personal information. It is remarked that one of the biggest challenges nowadays, is the sale of consumer information to pharmaceutical companies (Health IT n.d).
Another challenge that is happening with all these adoptions includes the need to enhance training for the use of the new software and hardware technology.