Talk about information technology is cheap. There is no shortage of buzzwords, pseudo-trends, or vendors hawking wares that range from worthy to wasteful. Let’s take March as a cue to do a little spring cleaning and sweep all those bits of chatter dust into 10 neat piles. The Top 10 trends in healthcare IT:

1) Electronic Medical Records: Making up-to-date patient information portable and readily available to whomever needs it seems like it would be efficient and would improve care—especially in emergency rooms. Certainly this is the top issue among policymakers. But who will pay for this and what the standards are remain unanswered.

2) Privacy and security: Regardless of whether patient information is electronic, it is sensitive and must be protected from unauthorized eyes. Technology does make a difference, though. Any data exposed to a network is vulnerable and any data that is stolen can be transferred or hidden easily. Don’t get caught with your encryption down.

3) Public health: Bioterrorism, bird flu, and SARS have focused attention on the need to track and manage outbreaks before they become pandemics. Because this challenge involves heavy data processing and pervasive communications, this is the ideal application for information technology. It is hoped that ideal systems will be in place before a pandemic threatens.

4) Medical errors: Electronic prescribing, drug barcodes, computerized order entry, and decision support systems all can help reduce medical errors if they are implemented correctly. When no human being is available to ask, “Are you sure?” a well-programmed computer can. But IT likely will never reduce all human error or replace human judgment.

5) Telemedicine: Transatlantic surgery, online continuing medical education, roving remotely controlled robodocs, and remote monitoring of outpatients are proof that telemedicine applications are for real, if not yet common. When they deliver care or knowledge to places they otherwise could not go, it is inspiring. When telemedicine puts hyperefficiency ahead of personalized care, it is sad.

6) Bioinformatics: The full promise of sequencing the human genome and conducting elaborate supercomputer simulations of protein folding has not been realized, but biology seems like a more quantitative science than ever. This new knowledge will be incredibly useful.

7) Patient empowerment: Beyond the early worries about how the Internet would inspire hypochondriacs and rampant self-diagnosis, IT is giving patients much greater insight and control over their care. Expect patients to know something about their maladies, to present with better questions, and to push not only for e-mail but also for online scheduling and billing.

8) Costs and complexity: This is not unique to health care, but especially in health care, no one is looking for ways to make it cost more and be more complex to introduce errors or undermine security. Cost and complexity define the ugly side of IT and they will never go away.

9) Disaster preparedness: Take your choice for a sobering reminder: Hurricane Katrina or the Visiting Nurses Association fire in Dallas. Disaster can strike. Back-up data often and consider storing a copy off site in a secure location (perhaps with an online service provider).

10) Personal technology: Speech recognition is constantly improving but still a little disappointing. Cell phones are a marvel, and those merged with a personal digital assistant can be useful for more than just voice. Handhelds and tablet PCs offer some pleasing mobility. Still, don’t buy what looks cool. Buy what will be useful.

Compute wisely.

This is David Orenstein’s last regular column for the Dallas Medical Journal. His insight and professionalism have been an asset to our publication over the last several years. We wish him all the best in his future endeavors.