The healthcare industry generates massive amount of data. Information Technology (IT) is, therefore, used extensively to capture and transfer information [1]. Healthcare industry is growing fast by using IT to automate its many processes like transaction, inventory keeping and maintaining records, thus eliminating mundane and repetitive processes. [2] Healthcare is the management, prevention and the treatment of illness and the main aim is to provide clean and effective services that lead to the preservation of mental and physical well-being of humans and animals. Medical decision-support systems (MDSS) are computer systems designed to assist physicians or other healthcare professionals in making clinical decisions. MDSS can help physicians to organize, store, and apply the exploding amount of medical knowledge. They are expected to improve the quality of care by providing more accurate, effective, and reliable diagnoses and treatments, and by avoiding errors due to physicians' insufficient knowledge. In addition, MDSS can decrease healthcare costs by providing a more specific and faster diagnosis, by processing drug prescriptions more efficiently, and by reducing the need for specialist consultations [3].The medical diagnosis of an illness can be done in many ways; from the patient’s description, physical examination and/or laboratory tests. Most MDSS cover only a narrow field of medical knowledge and exhibit a significant decline of their performance if they are used at or beyond the border of their intended scope. The impact of MDSS on the quality of care should be monitored continuously by rigorous outcome studies. In addition, MDSS should provide a method to capture those cases, by which the user overrides the system's advice. The diagnostic advice of MDSS will always be limited because the system can process only a small portion of the patient data available to the physician.
Various problems such as inadequate coordination and communication among providers, misaligned incentives, and poor information management have a negative impact on the health of patients which can drive up spending on health care unnecessarily. Many of these problems stem from fragmentation, lack of integration and a focus on particular services rather than the holistic needs of patients, which characterize care in our health system today. Making the needed improvements will require nothing less than a transformation in how patient care is delivered.
Transforming health care delivery so as to better meet the needs of patients will require changes to strengthen delivery of care for patients who already have good access to services, as well as changes to improve care for patients who find it harder to get the care they need. In both cases policymakers and health care experts are eying new and emerging models of health care delivery as potentially better positioned to meet the challenges of growing complexity in health care and the expectations of actively engaged patients.