Healthcare information systems: a patient-user perspective

Abstract

The user in this paper is not a medical specialist but a real user of healthcare, a patient. The paper starts by looking at the lack of impact of information systems (ISs) in healthcare, examining the causes as published in the literature. An overview of these causes is enriched by the concerns arising from the first author's personal experiences as a Parkinson's disease patient (about 4 million suffer worldwide) for over 12 years. Seven short ethnographic studies are told as the basis for supporting this user's perspective of these concerns. The concerns are used as the basis for discussing a new way of thinking about healthcare. It is not suggested that the new way of thinking will be adopted, merely that discussion around the ideas may help clarify what healthcare ISs are about. In particular, the theme of the paper is that ignoring the patient cannot lead to the success of ISs.

Keywords:

• healthcare
• information systems
• electronic patient-centric records