The Impact of Technology on Health Care Delivery

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The Impact of technology on Health Care Delivery Technological innovations have generated truly remarkable advances in health care during the last three decades. Some of these advances have revolutionized the methods of health care delivery and it has changed dramatically the prevention, diagnosis, and prognosis of many diseases that were lethal in the past. Breakthroughs in such areas as microbiology, diagnostic imaging, organ and tissue replacement, surgical techniques, wound care, computer technology, etcetera, have helped to improve health care delivery and patient outcomes thus increasing the longevity of the population. However these technologies have met with several ethical issues some of which directly impact our society as a hole not only politically but more importantly economically. In the areas of microbiology according to (Harold, 1998, p. 1060) proper clinical management of infectious diseases relies primarily on the precise identification of the causative pathogen and the production of reliable information on its antimicrobial susceptibility. Traditional diagnostic methods had limited the ability of laboratories to provide doctors with timely and clinically germane information. Recent technology provides results in minutes or hours rather than days or weeks. In particular, advanced molecular biological techniques have increased the speed and sensitivity of detection methods, in cultures. These techniques called immunoassays also allow microbiologists to identify genes that result in resistance to antibiotics and to distinctive identification markers via DNA of the individual isolates for epidemiological tracking. Recognition of newly emerging infectious diseases and control of antibiotic resistance in Streptococcus pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae, Moraxella catarrhalis, Staphylococcus aureus, and common gram negative bacilli depend heavily on
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