Journal of Applied Medical Sciences

Better Control of Health Care Costs and Reduction of Medical Errors by Using Heath Information Technology

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• Abstract

  Better use of data and technology has the power to improve health, transforming the quality and reducing the cost of health and care services. Adoption of electronic medical records systems and valid comparative performance reporting would enable the development of value-based competition and quality improvement to drive transformation. Health Information Technology should facilitate system integration for broader optimization, and comparative benchmarking should encourage development of market-leading examples of ways to better organize, pay for, and deliver care. Patient safety can be improved through e-prescribing by increasing prescription legibility, decreasing the time required to prescribe medications and dispense them to patients, and decreasing medication errors and Adverse Drug Events. Besides helping adverse drug interactions and allergic reactions to medications, e-prescribing helps reduce medical errors caused by poor handwriting. E-prescribing can also produce significant cost savings by informing doctors of effective generic alternatives to brand-name drugs.