Impacts Of Technological Changes On Health And Human Service Delivery1

Running Head: IMPACT OF TECHN0LOGY ON HEALTH CARE

Impacts of Technological Changes on Health and Human Service Delivery

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IMPACT OF TECHN0LOGY ON HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICE DELIVERY 2

Over the last few decades, the world has experienced an enormous change in technology

that has changed both personal and professional lives. One area that has been greatly impacted

by the technological change is health and human service delivery. Increased use of emerging

technology in the two areas has led to the delivery of quality services to clients and efficiency.

Use of technology and reduced service access time thus ensuring health and human service

workers can be able to serve a large number of clients. This has been made possible through

technologies like online reservation, mobile communication, video conferencing, and availability

of wide range of information on the internet (Kincaid, 2004). However, use of technology in

health and human service delivery has raised ethical and legal issues that have to be eliminated

for better operation.

Both health and human service delivery deals with highly confidential client information

and thus security and confidentiality must be observed by peoples involved in the practices.

Human services are defined as those activities that meet human needs through remediation,

prevention while improving the quality of life of the general population (Services, 2015).

Technology is, therefore, used in human service delivery to improve coordination, accessibility,

and accountability in various service delivery agencies. On the other hand, technology has

greatly revolutionized the health through data management systems such as Electronic Health

Records (EHR), Health Information Exchange (HIE), and Management Systems (MS).

Emerging technology trends have greatly improved health and human service delivery in

many ways. For instance, many services have moved from internally focused model to external

ones where all the services are available in the cloud. The cloud infrastructure has ensured better

connectivity between service providers and consumers. The cloud has enabled health and human

service agencies to serve multiple customers without increasing operations cost. The cloud

IMPACT OF TECHN0LOGY ON HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICE DELIVERY 3

infrastructure uses economies of scale to reduce workload for personnel while decreasing the

cost of operations and services. Additionally, mobile technology in health and human service

delivery has greatly helped in reaching out to customers who are located in different

geographical regions. Development of mobile technology has ensured low-income families can

have access to smartphones which have access to the Internet (Swaminathan, 2012). Technology

has also led to the invention of IT hardware and software that can analyze a large amount of data

enabling agencies to make viable decisions. These systems have enabled close to real time

support to customers.

Research has shown that 30 million Americans that are over 50 years of age are using the

Internet to access Medicare and other online services. This is an indication that there is a need for

health and human services agencies to avail their services online. With the adoption of the cloud

infrastructure, many agencies have been able to offer services such as reservation, inquiries, and

payments online. Online services are convenient to the users because they are accessible around

the clock. Healthcare industry is also using the Internet to share patient information such as

previous prescriptions and allergies. The internet technology thus allows customers from rural

areas to have access to specialized treatment from urban areas without having to travel.

Technology has also enabled transmission of digital images and other diagnostic tools for

efficient treatment. Counselors are also using the internet to contact clients in between sessions.

In health care and human service, client’s information is treated with a lot of

confidentiality and, therefore, technological systems adopted should uphold that. Therefore, all

information systems should conform to set standards to ensure data protection. The Office of

Civil rights (OCR) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ensure security

privacy conformant of health systems through EHRs certification and HIPAA rules enforcement

IMPACT OF TECHN0LOGY ON HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICE DELIVERY 4

(Amatayakul, 2007). HIPAA rules provide guidelines to be followed by healthcare agencies to

ensure the protection of patient information. These rules also emphasize the need for EHR

developers to work closely with health care agencies. HIPAA directs organizations to implement

EHRs in stages that meets privacy and security requirements.

There are other federal organizations that are set aside to ensure medical systems meets

the set security standards. Center for Medicare and Medicaid services (CMS) is set to ensure all

programs used by different organizations are put into meaningful use. National Institute of

Standards and Technology (NIST) also sets security standards for federal governments but its

reports are available for the general public.

Confidential client information can be protected using encryption and access control. All

data stored and in transit must be encrypted to ensure even if they fall into the wrong hands they

are not compromised. Additionally, access to confidential information should be controlled using

user privileges. Every system user should provide credentials to be allowed to access information

within their privileges. The system administrator should set user privileges to ensure only

selected few persons to have access to confidential client information.

Use of technology raises many ethical issues that have to be considered before its use in

health and human service delivery. Some of the ethical issues that arise from the use of

technology and internet are pornography, identity theft and deception (Oravec, 2000). Health

professionalism hinders practitioners from disclosing client information to the third party without

their consent. However, information systems provide data centralization which enables unethical

staff to have access to such information.

IMPACT OF TECHN0LOGY ON HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICE DELIVERY 5

References

Amatayakul, M. (2007). Electronic health records: A practical guide for professionals and

organizations. Amer Health Information Management.

Kincaid, S. (2004). Technology in human services: Using technology to improve quality of life.

Council for Standards in Human Service Education, 7-49.

Oravec, J. A. (2000). Online counseling and the Internet: Perspectives for mental health care

supervision. Journal of Mental Health, 1363-1364.

Services, N. O. (2015, June 24). What is Human Services? Retrieved from national human

services website: http://www.nationalhumanservices.org/what-is-human-services

Swaminathan, K. S. (2012, April 18). 4 Technology Trends to Watch in Human Services.

Retrieved from govtech.com: http://www.govtech.com/e-government/4-Technology-

Trends-to-Watch-in-Human-Services.html

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