What are the benefits of eHealth?
Benefits of eHealth include: • Reducing medication errors. More than 2 million adverse drug events could be prevented through e-prescribing, saving 4.5 billion annually and 190,000 hospitalizations per year. (Hillestad et. al) • Reducing health care waste. Health IT adoption is estimated to save an average of 42 billion annually during a 15-year adoption period. (Hillestad et. al) • Facilitating medical research. Health IT can facilitate research on the effectiveness of new therapies and can accelerate the diffusion of health care knowledge. • Reducing variability in healthcare delivery and access. Disparities exist in access to care and quality of care. Telehealth can provide access to specialists in rural areas. The Nebraska Statewide Telehealth Network is one of the nation’s most extensive telehealth networks, connecting nearly all of the state’s hospitals and public health departments. Clinical decision support systems can improve quality of care by providing treatment reminders at
