The use of technology in healthcare is often difficult. The
information systems deployed by any organization must meet the health needs
of the patients or consumers, the business needs of the organization in the
financial terms of the industry, as well as be effective in a purely
technological fashion. At the critical care center of the New York-Weill
Cornell Campus, there is currently an attempt to implement a entirely
paperless system within the hospital environment. This means that all
patient information, lab results and medical texts would be accessible only
on computers. Also, physicians would record and order medications via
computer and write computer-based progress notes. This is designed to
minimize errors regarding incomplete and faulty information, and would
allow systems to notify medical personnel electronically in the case of
contraindicated medications, for example. Additionally, a fully featured
sign-out program would allow the House Staff to print sign-out sheets
containing brief histories, medications, and to-do lists for each of their
patients, enhancing communication between primary and the covering
physicians on call for that evening, even if the physicians were not the
patient's regular doctors. (Official Website, 2003)
At present, in the midst of this critical transition, the critical
care facility employs Eclipses software for charting on patient and the
medication given. Although the software company deployed is better known in
the media for its games technology, the visual nature that this allows for
creating charts is useful, especially when the individuals who must read
the charts need to do so quickly and/or do not speak English as their
primary or first language. (Eclipses, 2001)
The critical care facility also uses a Pyxis machine to database all
the narcotic information regarding patients. This software was designed
specific...