Information technology part of healthcare‘s remedy

As IT makes strides into healthcare, physicians and patients are starting to experience the enormous benefits of having access to medical information where and when it is needed most. Increasingly, enabling the flow of information within a healthcare organization will become a differentiator between providers competing in the GCC region. Traditionally, healthcare has seen lower levels of investment in IT than other service industries, for example banking. For healthcare providers this has resulted in systems that desperately need modernization to overcome the challenges that have arisen over the years: a disparate mix of software systems that struggle to share information; infrastructure that hinders rather than helps expansion and programs that are not optimally aligned with clinical workflows. As expectations grow of a continuum of care, the systems have increasingly struggled to deliver a truly integrated flow of information. Furthermore, systems have traditionally been designed around provider needs rather than around