Health workforce changes and the roles of information technology associated with these changes. "The Times They Are A-Changin' " (Bob Dylan, 1964).
Healthcare is considered a service profession and most of what clinicians do is manage information. Thus, information is not a necessary adjunct to care. It is care and effective patient management that require effective management of patients' clinical data. This perspective is supported by the World Health Organisation in its use of the quotation from Gonzalo Vecina Neto, head of the Brazilian National Health Regulatory Agency, 'There is no health without management, and there is no management without information'. This opinion paper discusses how traditional clinical decision-making led 'by the doctor' is unsustainable in the modern era and how e-technologies will facilitate distributed effective decision-making and new divisions of labour across the health workforce.
Department of Medicine, Launceston General Hospital, Launceston, Tasmania, Australia. terry.hannan@dhhs.tas.gov.au
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D003657:Decision Making; D020000:Decision Support Systems, Clinical / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000639:trends; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000639:trends*; D057286:Electronic Health Records / Q000458:organization & administration; D006801:Humans; D008490:Medical Informatics / Q000639:trends*; D015969:National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, U.S., Health and Medicine Division; D015279:Organizational Culture; D010819:Physician's Role; D014481:United States