One barrier slowing down the use of technology in hospitals includes reluctance on the part of doctors, said Dr Ho. Others are the lack of legislation to protect patient security and confidentiality. But the push to embrace patient-oriented technology has started. Late last year, the Singapore government grouped the public healthcare institutions into the Western and Eastern clusters to allow IT to be deployed more efficiently in the future. An integrated healthcare delivery system and workflow is expected to come out of this move, with IT playing a pivotal role in this process of integration, said Mr Ong .
Many hospitals already use IT in their operations.
But in most instances, medical staff can only get 100Mbps bandwidth at most on their computers due to the Ethernet topology. Tomorrow's hospitals will provide a one-stop service to patients by grouping all complementary services into one location for the convenience of the patients. Services will be brought to the patient and not the other way round. Within five years, Mr Ong expects broadband and wireless technologies to be fully utilised, with handheld PDAs, WAP phones and video conferencing playing a greater role in the practice of medicine. Wireless LAN is already being tested in a few local hospitals for the ordering of laboratory tests and the recording of nursing care plans.