Digital healthcare – time we learned to take our ‘smart’ medicine

25 Nov 2010

The Irish healthcare sector is one in which technology continues to be underutilised, international healthcare expert Dr Kip Webb has warned.

Webb, who has more than 25 years of healthcare experience, including 10 years of clinical practice, has also served in the Medical School faculty at Stanford University. Currently head of Accenture’s Clinical Solutions practice, he believes that Ireland should move to a technologically integrated system and says new hospitals would be a good start for a national rollout.

This, argues Webb, would enable key medical information, such as patient demographics, clinical diagnoses, medication history, radiology reports, laboratory investigations and discharge summaries to be exchangeable among healthcare providers.

Patients and organisations would also benefit from proper disease management and cost savings, as duplicate or unnecessary tests would be eliminated and medication errors reduced, he says.

Read more of ‘Digital healthcare – time we learned to take our ‘smart’ medicine’ at Digital 21.

www.digital21.ie – Digital 21 is a campaign to highlight the imperative of creating an action programme to secure the digital infrastructure and services upon which the success of our economy depends.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com