As part of the work, it is required to assess the risks that could express problems with the integration of new technologies for obtaining health care services within a small city. Clerkenwell Vale is a British town with an aging population and relatively low life expectancy. Given the technological backwardness of the city’s inhabitants, it is necessary to develop a legal framework that would prepare the city’s space for technical innovations.
How the Integrated Use of Technology Can Play a Key Role in Health
Clayton Christensen’s theory of disruptive innovation can be applied here (Lorenzo et al., 2018). This case is a potential example of how the gradual introduction of innovation can, step by step, revolutionize the entire healthcare structure in the city, making it competitive in this area. The integrated use of technology in modern realities can significantly facilitate the process of interaction between the patient and the healthcare system. Using special software for the primary diagnostic procedure, patients can significantly reduce the burden on the doctors of the town struggling to cope with the growing population. The use of digital technology as a response to the challenges of today’s medical system is seen in a selection of Tunstall Cognitive Care solutions that use database manipulation to create a personalized predictive health care model (Beech and Porteus, 2021, p. 47). IT technologies help not only collect and conveniently organize but also store the data in electronic medical records, which can potentially provide a detailed database for automatic medical diagnosis by a special bot.
How Technology / Innovation Are Adopted
The introduction of this practice requires certain transformations in the professional routine of doctors. They will have to enter information according to computer presets in order for the medical records to meet the basic information criteria of the Electronic Health Record. This includes patient demographics, lists of patient problems and ailments, laboratory and x-ray data, and lists of prescribed medications.
The advantages, however, in this way are in the extremely high efficiency of the work of the doctor. Their task of making a diagnosis, if does not cease to require responsibility, then definitely becomes more reliably informed. From the point of view of storing information, it is necessary to take into account the basic legal conditions required to ensure the desired level of privacy. Passed in 1996, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) provides data security as medical records move into the electronic realm (Barlow, 2017). Confidentiality of medical data is consistent with the principle of patient-centered care that underlies modern Western medical practice.
The Emergence of Technology in Health, Housing and Social Care: TAPPI Report
First of all, for the successful introduction of new technologies into the health care system of the city, the consent and participation of the elderly segment of the population are required. TAPPI (Technology for our Aging Population: Panel for Innovation) is a special research project highlighting initiatives aimed at bringing the benefits of technology to the elderly population and how it can make access to health care simpler (Beech and Porteus, 2021). Activities such as searching for a suitable nurse or sitter are much easier if the customer is guided by interactive technologies that allow you to find the right service worker. Not least initiated by the global pandemic that hit the elderly, this project provides useful guidance on how to bring older generations and technology closer together.
The use of technology is perceived by TAPPI as the establishment of communication through tools convenient for this. It is necessary to teach the elderly not to be afraid of technologies and to perceive them with immediate interest. Every successful project or medical system will have to comply with the patient-centered principles of TAPPI – creating a design, encouraging the administration to integrate, giving independence to the decision-makers of patients, it will be possible to truly create a coherent and well-functioning response system in the health sector of the town.
A Framework for Assessing Risk
Using the Failure Mode Effect Analysis, the main possible negative consequences of an attempt to carry out such integration and their causes are identified. The mode of failure, in this case, should be sought in the frustration of an elderly patient in contact with the technological model of health care (Bessant and Tidd, 2011). The patient may experience reluctance to be treated or distrust in the healthcare system, which will be inescapable if one does not conduct explanatory work with them and does not bring the technology to a really high level. The patient may feel isolated because the root of the problem is the lack of habitual human communication with the doctor, which gave a sense of real care.
Potential Risks
Risk in this framework is understood as a combination of the possibility of the occurrence of non-native events with their consequences; knowledge of the risks makes it possible to reduce this probability. Interaction with technology may not replace real communication for patients and result in miscommunication and the formation of a prejudicial negative attitude towards technology (Lorenzo et al., 2018). The consequences of such a mode can be a failure of technological integration and a decrease in the level of services provided, which makes this mod the most important and problematic. The most useful option would be to introduce the technology gradually, without fully automating the process from the very first stage. Gradual technologization should be accompanied by special training seminars and educational initiatives that would give live and direct communication to patients even more than they received before integration (Bessant and Tidd, 2011). This is how the Rogers model will be implemented, gradually moving from awareness and arousing interest to the gradual interaction and adoption of a technological innovation by the public.
The main risk for this enterprise is the technological unpreparedness of the residents and a significant educational gap that can create miscommunication between them and the changing healthcare system (Barlow, 2017, p. 57). This risk needs to be taken into account when developing a methodological implementation program and requires constant dialog with the population of the town. The second essential negative aspect can be built from the same problem of discord of communication. With disparities in health care in the town before the introduction of technology, the situation is in danger of becoming even more precarious. The principle of technologization of medicine runs the risk of becoming a condition for survival for every inhabitant of the population. This, in turn, means that the percentage of the population that is not technologically educated may be doomed to extinction, which is absolutely unacceptable (Barlow, 2017, p. 326). Therefore, a more conservative backup mechanism of the system is needed.
Reference List
Barlow, J. (2017) Managing Innovation in Healthcare. World Scientific. London.
Beech, L. and Porteus, J. (2021) ‘The TAPPI Inquiry Report’, The Dunhill Medical Trust.
Bessant, J., and Tidd, J. (2011). Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Wiley. West Sussex.
Lorenzo, O., Kawalek, P., and Wharton, L. (2018) Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Technology: A Guide to Core Models and Tools. Routledge Focus. London