The healthcare industry is being impacted by advances in information technology in four major ways: first, a broad spectrum of tasks that were previously done manually can now be performed by computers; second, some tasks can be outsourced to other countries using inexpensive communications technology; third, longitudinal and societal healthcare data can now be analyzed in acceptable periods of...

Patient safety has become an important policy agenda in healthcare systems since publication of the 1999 report entitled "To Err Is Human." The paradigm has changed from blaming the individual for the error to identifying the weakness in the system that led to the adverse events. Anesthesia is one of the first healthcare specialties to adopt techniques and lessons from the aviation industry. Th...

In the United States, there is currently significant growth in the construction of healthcare facilities. This healthcare construction boom is driven by multiple factors including population shifts within the U.S.; aging facilities which no longer meet modern operational practices and efficiencies; and significant shifts in building code requirements. The last major healthcare construction boom...

The emergence of the Internet has impacted the health information and the healthcare industry. The information revolution has reduced the distance between the healthcare providers and consumers. It permits easy dissemination of information and fast accessibility of data. Because of easy accessibility, privacy and confidentiality has become an important issue to be considered in the implementati...

Pressured by the speed of technological advances, the need for change and improvisation has hit the healthcare industry. Now society demands that healthcare providers offer better patient care through the creative use of information technologies. In turn, healthcare management asserts pressure on IS/IT practitioners to expand the boundaries for innovative IS design strategies. Research on healt...

Over the past ten years the healthcare industry has become a main target of union organizing efforts. While registered nurses represent the largest group of healthcare professionals, union efforts to organize nurses have met only limited success. Evidence suggests that nurses are more inclined to join a union if they believe the union can help them address one of their most important concerns—t...

With the global spending of more than US$4.1 trillion in 2007, healthcare has been one of the largest industries worldwide. To better plan and develop the healthcare system, an effective way is to leverage on the advancement of information technology (IT). However, despite of many attempts in the computerization and automation of healthcare services, most of the healthcare information systems f...