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194: ROLE OF INFORMATION IN PREVENTION OF UNNECESSARY HEALTH DELIVERY
  1. Vishwa Mohan Vangari
  1. Head, Chairman, Board of Studies and Coordinator, PGDDIM, Department of Library and Information Science, Osmania University, Hyderabad, India.

Abstract

Health is real wealth. Ill-health disables normalcy in one's life, therefore, health delivery proves to be indispensable and invaluable. But at the same time unnecessary health delivery proves to be harmful and costly. In modern times the cost of health delivery is so heavy that people belonging to lower economic strata cannot afford it. When this is the situation, unnecessary health delivery proves to be unethical. It is in view of this Right information at the right time would play a vital role in preventing unnecessary health delivery, that in turn would prevent physical damage caused to the person and also save substantial amount of money. The study aims at exploring how information plays a role in preventing unnecessary health delivery.

The methodology applied to carry out the study was a mix-method of quantitative analysis and qualitative study on a cohort group of 10 patients who had chronic ailments for more than 10 years. The data was collected through a clinical interview with an unstructured schedule consisting of open-ended questions.

The study identified four categories for direct impact of information in control of unnecessary health delivery including cost, hospital readmission diagnostic test prescription, and reduction in drug/medication prescription. In addition, almost all (90%) respondents fully agreed to the vital role of information in preventing unnecessary health delivery. All the respondents (100%) emphasis that the information should flow through authentic sources. Most of the respondents state that professional ethics and integrity occupy primary place in avoiding unnecessary health delivery.

  • Health Information Exchange
  • Access to Information
  • consumer health information
  • over-diagnosis
  • over-treatment

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

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