Best Practices: Restructuring Health Care Practice

• Date: April 06, 2010
• Source: Admin

The progress of the information revolution in clinical health care has been slow compared with its advance in fields such as financial services, manufacturing, architectural design, and transportation. Computerized data processing came first to the financial aspects of health care, including clinical billing systems. Clinical laboratories, radiology, and research absorbed the new and powerful tools made possible by computer technology. Clinicians were dragged reluctantly into compliance with diagnostic-related groups (DRGs) and Current Procedural Terminology (CPT). Reluctance was followed by dismay when use of DRGs and CPT led to the creation of massive pooled databases of clinical information and the documentation of significant variations in quality, cost, efficiency, and outcomes.