Network-Centric Healthcare and the Entry Point into the Network

The concept of e-health gains rapid and widespread international acceptance as the most practical means of reducing burgeoning healthcare costs, improving healthcare delivery, and reducing medical errors. However, due to profit-maximizing forces controlling healthcare, the majority of e-based systems are characterized by non-existent or marginal compatibility leading to platformcentricity that is, a large number of individual information platforms incapable of integrated, collaborative functions. While such systems provide excellent service within limited range healthcare operations (such as hospital groups, insurance companies, or local healthcare delivery services), chaos exists at the level of nationwide or international activities. As a result, despite intense efforts, introduction of e-health doctrine has minimal impact on reduction of healthcare costs. Based on their previous work, the authors present the doctrine of network-centric healthcare operations that assures unimpeded flow and dissemination of fully compatible, high quality, and operation-relevant healthcare information and knowledge within the Worldwide Healthcare Information Grid (WHIG). In similarity to network-centric concepts developed and used by the armed forces of several nations, practical implementation of WHIG, consisting of interconnected entry portals, nodes, and telecommunication infrastructure, will result in enhanced administrative efficiency, better resource allocation, higher responsiveness to healthcare crises, and—most importantly—improved delivery of healthcare services worldwide.