Journal of Health Care Communications Open Access

Bearing in mind that no two individuals are physically and psychologically identical work on each individual patient would entail a new experience from medical perspective. Medical science like other sciences owes its development to the experience accumulated in the form of health care information or health records.

Health record contains documented facts about a person's health status including prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation episodes from prenatal period to death. Due to its abundant benefits health record can serve as an effective tool for communication among care team members when the patient is under the care of a health care organization. From another perspective, it can serve as a source for developing the necessary relationship between information producers and consumers when the individual has been discharged from the health care institution.

The quality data in health records is one of the important factors in improving the quality of care. On the other hand, quality health records can be considered as a useful tool for effective communication if semantically everybody has the same understanding of its content. This important feature can be realized through the creation of data content standards that are introduced through health care nomenclatures such as SNOMED-CT, IND, LOINC, and health classification systems such as ICD, DSM4, ICDO. In line global management, the specification of preferred vocabulary sources for the contents of the health record in all Health fields is one of the main duties of international organizations like WHO. The effort undertaken to specify such vocabulary items is equal to success in an important challenge that we currently face in semantic interoperability of information and communication technology (ICT).

It cannot be denied that the growth and penetration of ICT in all aspects of human life and in all types of science is so noticeable that if today we can claim that the “Mother of All Sciences” is phenomenology certainly the recognition of this assertion will not be so simple till a decade later when future generations in any field of science will delve into the roots of information technology so profoundly that to them this technology will be the “Mother of All Sciences”.

Information technology and communication technology are jointly collaborating to cut short distance in all fields. The bond between the two technologies in the field of health has resulted in equitable distribution of resources and easy access of the applicants to health services. These two technologies like the inevitable dual presence of conjoined twins are jointly striving to offer a just and equitable health to the world.

One of the products of health informatics or in other words, one of the applications of ICT in the health system is the national health network (NHN). This network which takes shape in the platforms of computers and the internet is indeed the national health information network (NHIN) which offers the electronic health record (EHR) as it’s most significant output. This is virtually a network of health information systems which are interoperable and have the capability to interact with other countries’ NHINs.

Of course, at the moment with numerous difficulties such as language diversity multi concept words and the impact of tone and phone of voice on word meaning, forming obstacles in the semantic phase that could reduce the interoperability of information systems, the summary EHR has attracted the attention of international societies. The existence of standards like continuity of care document (CCD) as the standard of structure and content and the XML as the standard of data exchange could make it possible to create summary EHR and exchange it among national health information networks worldwide. These standards are very important factors for establishing effective communication among health care organizations and their health information systems.

The development of micro-processor technology and the emergence of Nano-electronics promise the presence of helpful electronic tools in the health system of different countries. The telephone, internet, and point of care systems (POCs) together with the smart mobile devices are examples of these helpful devices that collectively have had a positive and significant impact on the health system. These devices in addition to facilitating the delivery of health services have created a new type of health service known as e-health. Among the significant outputs of this type of service are effective communication between care providers and clients applicants’ quick and easy access to care resources and services at close or far distance and fewer travels.

In the absence of sufficient health resources, including skilled manpower and equipment the ICT as a data transmission service can offer various types of health care services as Telecare, Telemedicine and Telehealth to our communities.

Also, substantial increase in the capacity of mobile technology, which can be used to exploit various facilities on the one hand and the need to provide various health services to the public on the other, have resulted in the development of a special type of electronic health, known as mobile health (m-Health). This kind of health service, using portable devices with communication and processing capabilities like the smart mobiles has developed the most tangible type of device for effective communication in the health care.

M-health, while encouraging the promotion of self-care among people can alleviate the heavy burden of health expenses of judicious governments with prudent managerial policies for different social issues, especially the health care.

To recap before long under the umbrella of a global management people will witness the realization of personal health records (PHR) and interoperable EHR with enormous benefits for electronic health and mobile health.