Building healthcare delivery and management systems centred on information about the human aspects

The importance of modern information systems to manage healthcare delivery at the macro level--particularly through purchasing--is increasingly being recognised. There is also increasing investment in electronic patient record systems to aid care delivery. Both are intended to benefit the individual, yet neither gives full consideration to the human aspects and values--largely because of the under development of appropriate terms and structures. It is important to identify and structure the human facets as the determinants and principal components of healthcare delivery systems, to improve the information structure of these components, and then to use them as the building blocks of macro-management systems, so as to fuel the whole dynamic with one set of person-based values.