The contribution of information technology to emergency medicine

Information systems have been adopted in many fields including the healthcare industry. Indeed, keeping abreast of the advances of the technological age, many medical organizations have invested heavily in information technologies (IT), aiming at improving medical decision-making and increasing its efficiency. Despite their advantages, information systems do not always provide the vital medical information required for medical decision-making, and the decisions may result in a decreased level of quality of care and unnecessary costs. The objective of this research is to evaluate the contribution of IT to decision-makers (physicians) at the point of care of emergency departments (EDs). We evaluate the contribution of the medical information to medical decisions by using two methods: the track log-file analysis and an experimental study. Our results lead to the major conclusion that using IT contributes to increasing the proportion of correct admission decisions.