[Role of information system for the health care delivery in community].
Sophisticated information technologies have been applied in hospitals as well as in clinics. However, almost no information system has been developed which links hospitals and clinics. Medical care and welfare services are still separated activities and there are no information systems which exchange the data between the two sectors. Emergency medical information systems have been developed in the past, but they are usually used only for the exchange of bed occupancy information. Doctors started using the Internet, but there have been few medical books in Japanese in cyber space. Initiatives of medical personnel who are engaged in the daily health care delivery are necessary to solve the above stated problems. Some promising systems are emerging by the efforts of pioneers. Administrative agencies should assist the efforts of these initiatives to improve the community health care delivery. In the near future, the information systems will have some influence on the shape of medical care. Patient's medical data will be disclosed to patients. Specialty of hospitals will be also disclosed to the public. As a result, doctors will start to seek for more objective evidence for their medical care to patients. Clinical practice guidelines will be produced for common diseases in Japan as in Europe. Hospitals will cooperate with each other in the delivery of care, because it will be impossible for one hospital to give all types of care to patients. Hospitals in a community will function as if a virtually single hospital even though they are different in management.
D003153:Community Health Services; D003695:Delivery of Health Care; D006751:Hospital Information Systems; D007256:Information Systems; D007564:Japan; D017216:Telemedicine