There has always been reams and reams of medical data for medical staff to deal with. British physicians were already in the habit of maintaining medical records before America was colonized, and the habit seems to have been passed on to our country’s hospitals ever since. Until computer technology came to the fore however, these records were maintained as individual written files in a painstaking manner. The widespread availability of computers and its data processing technologies then, was a game-changer, and it would be fair to say that the US healthcare industry has just witnessed another one of these game-changers of late.

This new game-changer comes in the shape of Information Technology, or IT as it’s known as in common parlance. For those still slightly in the dark regarding what IT means exactly, Merriam-Webster defines Information Technology as “the technology involving the development, maintenance, and use of computer systems, software, and networks for the processing and distribution of data.” IT has affected the way we conduct our lives in many different ways, the one aspect of our lives that has been most affected though is finances. Banking and finance, as an industry has grown leaps and bounds thanks to the injection of IT technology, and the healthcare industry isn’t far behind either.

The Link between Information Technology and Healthcare