| | NOVEMBER 20198CIOReviewTechnology has become an indispensable part of every industry, and the healthcare sector is no stranger to the changes that innovation has made in the health care space. The development of digitalized and network-connected medical equipment has made significant contributions to improving health and saving countless lives all around the world. The integration of technology with different areas of focus, such as disease detection and prevention, surgical procedures, and patient video visits has brought along many benefits, as well as its own set of challenges. Understanding the trending factorsThere is a transformational shift occurring in every industry with organizations adopting cloud and converged infrastructure. This evolution has enabled them to reach out to external vendors with increased interconnectedness. In contrast to earlier practices, organizations are prepared to form alliances with vendors as they want to focus on their business efficiency and metrics when it comes to integrating their various systems and obtaining value. This development gradually progressed into the healthcare sector, where initially, we were not open to the concept of the public cloud. However, with more security maturity in the public cloud, this has enabled traditionally conservative health care organization to entrust their infrastructure and data into cloud environments. From an average hospital room, where there is typically an average of five medical devices, to the intensive care units, which can have as many as 22 connected medical devices, hospital rooms are inherently dependent on technology. Since we are very focus on patient safety and positive patient outcomes, it is essential for us to focus on service management By James W. Brady, CIO, Los Angeles County Department of Health ServicesTHE TECHNOLOGICAL SHIFT IN IT SERVICE MANAGEMENT for these technologies. I do not believe anyone would want these critical systems to be interrupted or having issues during life threatening operations or intensive medical procedures. Therefore, it was essential that technology management in the healthcare sector evolve and remain current with other industries. Challenges in the ITSM spaceReferencing the healthcare space, it is a very complex environment with many proprietary systems, some of which were not designed to communicate with each other. This lack of integration and interoperability is a significant challenge in the healthcare sector. As we do not have a single national patient identifier system within the United States, care providers are often challenged with not knowing who their patients are from a electronic health record perspective. This can cause patient harm. For example, if a physician looks up the medical record of a patient, there is the danger that allergy and medication maybe incorrect. Prescribing medications could then cause patient harm. Another challenge that we are trying to address is the lack of standards in use with systems and equipment in healthcare. With differing standards and protocols, critical patient information is often times not shared with other health care providers or payers due to the inability of systems to communicate with each other. The government has intervened, establishing more stringent regulations and incentive programs IN MY OPINION
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