1""Lowering Health Care Costs Through the Use of New Technologies MIS 304 Professor Fang Fang May 10th, 2010 A report by: Jannae Baca, Carly Byron, Melissa Caro and Michael Paje2""Table of Contents I. Introduction………………………………. 3 II. Prevention…………………………………5 III. Diagnosis………………………………….9 IV. Treatment………………………………….15 V. Conclusion………………………………...213""I. Introduction We chose this topic because we are interested in learning more about the relationship between health and technology. In addition, when we started researching for our topic we found the link between technology and how it helped health services to provide better assistance to our society very interesting. Health technology is the use of skill to improve health care systems and medical devices. It is also described as a technique that is utilized by health professionals to help with diagnoses along with prevention and treatment. Health technology also improves quality and a more organized health care system. We have learned a lot in our Management Information System class of how important it is to be updated in new innovations and new information systems. According to what we have learned from our MIS class, information system can help people to achieve goals and objectives of a business. We see how technology has helped in so many ways to improve our society and at the same time has also reduced costs. Today, healthcare is one of the most controversial topics in our society. One of the reasons is the high cost of health care. According to research, health care costs in the United States are over two trillion dollars. A doctor’s appointment, prescriptions, x-rays, and treatments can be very expensive; furthermore, procedures and treatments can be excessive and unnecessary. With the use of the newest software, hardware, and equipment it will help health care systems to be more efficient and accurate.4"" The World Health Organization states that “health technology helps to solve health problems and it saves lives” (www.who.com). New technology and better systems are helping hospitals and health service centers to provide better assistance. In developing countries they do not have many resources available for their health. New technology will help those developing countries prevent diseases and diagnose illness such as diabetes, malaria and HIV; furthermore, these technologies will lower the cost of treatments. Our focus for this project is to share what new technologies and new systems are being invented for our society and around the world to decrease health care costs. We also want to share how these new systems and technologies have improved our health care centers and have helped to reduce the patients’ costs. According to a website called How to do things “new technologies can lead to cost savings and efficiency. The problem of expensive health care can be solved by adequate use of information technology in the health care system.” This means information systems and information technology is a very important tool of business. It helps the people such as doctors, nurses, and patients to improve communication and prevent extra visits to the doctor as well as saving money. “The Health Information Technology (HIT) is working on providing a better communication between patients and health care personal” (Kosmider). This means that with the help of technology hospitals and health institutions get a better system and better equipment. New innovations and the use of information systems will help to reduce medical expenses on diagnosis prevention and treatment. This means that with new equipment5""and better software people who work in health care institutions will be capable of offering better assistance to patients. In addition, it will help to prevent unnecessary procedures and extra medical exams that patients sometimes have to go through in order to find any possible problems with their health. According to an article from stltoday.com, some Americans are more likely to get insurance, because of the new technology being invented. The article states “medical entrepreneurs are moving swiftly, promising new drugs and medical devices that will be ‘safer, faster and cheaper’” (Doyle). A reason why it is so important to be open to new things is because we may be able to prevent the extra costs and time spent on needless exams, treatments and other procedures that a patient may not need. Better communication and the right equipment can fix these underlying problems. II. Prevention Ideally the best way to lower health care costs would be to eliminate the need for health care all together through preventative technologies. Unfortunately with bacteria and viruses constantly evolving, this idea is simply unrealistic. Even so, preventative technologies can still drastically reduce health care costs. Focusing on major problems the population faces today, these technologies can not only save money, but thousands upon thousands of human lives as well. Presented below are several upcoming technologies focused on achieving this goal. Pandemics of bird flu, influenza and the recent H1N1 virus pose an imminent threat to people everywhere. The next bird flu pandemic is estimated to claim over sixty-6""two million lives. Almost sixty million of the lives claimed will be in developing nations with seventeen million being children (http://www.filligent.com/). To prevent such a tragedy an affordable, simple solution is needed. Filigent, a Hong Kong biotech company, is dedicated to conquering such a challenge. As such, the company has created BioMask. Biomask is a medical facemask that kills influenza, common cold, respiratory and measles viruses as well as mycobacterium on contact. Such a feat is made possible by BioFriend, another product generated by Filigent. BioFriend utilizes molecular mimicry. Basically it acts as human cells to attract microbes. Then BioFriend destroys them by disrupting their surfaces and cell walls. Filigent has not revealed the exact agent used to accomplish this molecular mimicry, (probably to prevent competition in the marketplace) but they have revealed how it works. The agent generates a negative charge to attract the microbes. Next copper and zinc ions kill the microbes as describe above. Tests show that this rather simple process
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