The power of capturing and using information at the point of care

Abstract

Historically, the process of scientific discovery and the process of clinical delivery have been poorly integrated. As a result of the Decade of Health Information Technology (2004-2014), many of the former barriers to capturing, processing, and retrieving medical information at the point of care have been surmounted. This change has the potential to both transform how new medical discoveries are made and how evidence-based medicine is put into practice. To illustrate the impact of this ongoing change, several examples are provided of institutions which have innovatively used information at the point of care.

Keywords: Analytics; Evidence-based medicine; Health IT; Healthcare delivery; Scientific discovery.