Information and Communication Technologies in Healthcare: Still Innovation or Reality? Innovative and Entrepreneurial Value - creating Approach in Healthcare Management

Abstract

While developed countries have never been healthier, healthcare systems are facing challenges never witnessed before. An increasing demand for healthcare services resulting from a longer life expectancy associated with a widespread occurrence of civilization diseases and those which incidence increases with age escalates the total cost of health care provision and the health system maintenance. The potential of information and communication technologies as means to support the organization of the healthcare system, promising harmonization of processes, promptness and increased service quality, all this accompanied by a reduction of the global expenditure has been consistently considered and eventually adopted by governments worldwide. Information and communication technologies represent, indeed, a potential for the system, as well as they carry a number of risks accompanying their implementation. This article analyzes the issues that electronic revolution brings into the provision of health services, both, from the point of view of a provider and a patient. Specifically, it focuses on Electronic Health Record and Personal Health Record, bringing reflections on experiences from their application in the United Stated and the United Kingdom to, finally, discusses the situation in Poland. We used an extensive literature review as a starting point for this study, which scanned and searched for publications in CINAHL, Web of Science and Scopus databases. This led us to the conclusion that, typically, scientific publications could not fully depict the real picture and the current contribution of information and communication technologies to the development of the healthcare services system. Thus, the literature review was extended and included grey literature, technical reports from government agencies, working papers, white papers, and papers not published but presented in public presentations.