Insufficient testing is the bane of many a promising IT
project, but in most cases it leads to nothing more than
frustration on the part of the end-user.
In healthcare IT the need for testing is much more important in
that there can be serious consequences for patients if systems are
not working properly. But there is very little regulation of
products and services, or of their suppliers.
This contrasts with the regulations governing drugs companies,
where more than half the typical 12-year development time for a
product is likely to be spent on safety and efficacy studies before
the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency lets it go
to market.
The argument that IT systems are largely administrative and
therefore do not require a similarly rigorous level of scrutiny
does not hold water. In hospitals and surgeries, administration and
patient care cannot be so easily separated.
As Tony Collins points out in
It's about people, not just technology, delays to hospital
appointments, for example, because of IT problems can cause
emotional distress to patients and have potentially serious
clinical implications.
Naturally everybody involved in developing systems wants to
deliver benefits at the earliest possible moment. But every IT
user, whether in healthcare or in business, knows that most systems
when first delivered contain faults which need fixing before the
system does what has been promised.
This danger of buggy systems can only be pre-empted by rigorous
testing and remedial action before delivery, even it means delays.
Patients, unlike business executives, do not have the luxury of
withholding payment until problems are fixed.
They need the protection that can only come by an appropriate
level of regulation of healthcare IT systems and services and of
their suppliers.
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