Watchdog organizations
Health advocacy and consumer protection has evolved with the emergence of technologies. The availability of resourceful channels of communication and reaching the masses has facilitated the vibrancy with which consumer health watchdogs can now impact policymaking, educate and create sensitization across communities (W. A., & Johnson, 2013). The Center for Food Safety is one organization that has emerged as a watchdog and an advocate in the healthcare sector with a view to imparting knowledge to the populace to help them make appropriate health decisions (Center for Food Safety, 2016). For the Center for Food Safety, their major role has revolved around helping curb the use of production methods that pose harm to the health of individuals and the society in general while also impacting negatively on the environment. The organization seeks to promote sustainable agricultural technologies and methods with a major insistence on organic farming which prove advantageous to the individual consuming the products as well as sustainability of the environment with minimal degradation. The organization utilizes scientific reports and policy guidelines, legal action as well as market pressure coupled with grassroots campaigns in collaboration with its partner organization the True Food Network (Center for Food Safety, 2016).
Role of Health Information Technology
With the emergence of new technologies and the evolving nature of the technological sector, the health care sector has not been left behind in the transformation. The impact of information technology within the healthcare sector can be felt across data collection, dissemination of evidence and even in the diagnostic level (Chou, 2012). with latest technologies such as tele-health being the new channels that clearly depict the impact of technology, it is apparent that these changes have enabled the healthcare services to reach a majority of people and more importantly led to accurate and more reliable methods of managing patient illnesses. Specific impacts within the healthcare system include the emergence and utilization of electronic health and medical records which have facilitated the acquisition of data and information that can be utilized virtually across partnering care facilities to help manage patient illnesses (W. A., & Johnson, 2013).
On the other hand, with the emergence of chronic illnesses as a major challenge in the sector, the introduction of high level technologies to help manage these patients has been lauded as a positive impact. This is even with the acknowledgement of the fact that today the detection of chronic illnesses can be done at very early stages which essentially enables progression to severity (Chou, 2012). The time value for money has significantly been increased with the adoption of technologies within the sector especially where they have completely replaced the manual tasks. The tele-health technologies on their part have on their part enabled rural communities to access quality care services without necessarily having to traverse the long physical distances that have previously been a barrier to care access (Chou, 2012).
On the negative aspect, the introduction of IT in the healthcare sector has been regarded as a major complexity and one that has gradually lost the human touch that was previously afforded by the interaction between the patient and the physician or nurse. For the opponents, it has been regarded as a sure way to increase sophistication and unnecessary complexity even at a time when the role of patient-nurse relationship is being advocated (Chou, 2012). On the other hand, the incidences of these technologies at times experiencing technical hitches and casing harm to patients has placed significant doubt on the importance of technology and its viability in managing patients especially where the role of the physician or the nurse has been minimized (W. A., & Johnson, 2013).
References
Center for Food Safety. (2016). Center for Food Safety | About Us. Retrieved from http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/about-us
Chou, D. (2012). Health IT and Patient Safety: Building Safer Systems for Better Care. JAMA, 308(21), 2282-2282.
W. A., & Johnson, J. K. (2013). Continuous quality improvement in health care (4th Ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
