THE REVIEW OF the 60-year history of the Australian
Healthcare and Hospitals Association highlights
the important role of information and
information management in enhancing the Australian
health care system. In 1990 Peter Read, the
National Director of the (then) Australian Hospital
Association, suggested that the health system
would soon have
hospitals where there are proper information
systems which allow managers to identify
problem areas by intra and inter hospital comparisons;
hospitals where managers know how
much treatment does cost and more importantly
how much it should cost; and hospitals
where the incentives encourage efficient high
quality care and where payment received has
some relevance to the cost of treatment given.1
But 2007 is almost over and, as outlined by Jared
Dart our n=1 author (page 510), we are still waiting!
Government funders and health service organisations
typically view information as a cost to be
managed and not as an asset in which to invest.
While investment in health care information management
and technology cannot often be justified
on economic or financial terms (that is, the financial
return on investment [ROI]), a broader perspective
that included the positive impact on the
quality of care, the improvement in patient safety
and patient satisfaction, and the reduction in social
costs would favourably tip the investment scale. A
paradigm shift is required to balance an overriding
concern with return on investment with return to
care.
This issue focuses on work that is being completed
on information foundations (pages 523, 531,
540 and 546), exploitation of technology (page 527)
and the use of information to improve care. I would
like to draw your attention to the paper by Watson,
Rayner, and Lumley from Mother and Child Health
Research that outlines their experience in obtaining
ethics approval for a study of preterm birth
(page 514). This paper provides an example of the
information inefficiencies that we have created and
perpetuate in our health care system.
Don?t miss this issue?s Models of Care paper by
Francis and colleagues (page 499) and the concept
of health in older age (page 642).
Integrating asthma education and smoking cessation for parents: Financial return on investment