ICT systems: the key for improvement in healthcare

Introduction: The role of ICT has an exponential impact in human life, especially in healthcare. Development of appropriate ICT systems in healthcare requires the contribution of biomedical engineers. Methods: The diffusion of advanced technologies in healthcare implies an increased number of electronic medical records. Then, one of the main roles of healthcare ICT systems is to provide effective management and optimal storage of those data, to support clinician’s decision. Another big challenge is the integration of medical records in order to share information among different health providers. This rises questions related to the protection of patient’s data from hackers (see the ransomware “Wannacry” in May 2017) and problems related to patient’s privacy. Moreover, the present development of personalized medicine, based on genomics, which is one of the most promising attempts to improve the quality of care, by allowing early detection of risk conditions and predispositions, requires innovative ICT systems for handling the big data coming from genomics. Those ultra-sensible data will need the design of special measures of protection, by a rigorous engineering approach. Conclusions: ICT systems are fundamental for the progress of healthcare through management, retrieval, and protection of medical data in support to clinical decision making. Biomedical and clinical engineers are the professionals whose skills are fundamental to manage and design such systems.