Trends in Health Information Systems and Applications (M4C) - Essay Example

Application of Health Information System in Managing Healthcare Data Storage The quality and efficiency of the delivery of health care services are not only based on the patient outcome. All the processes involved in the patient care are equally relevant in achieving a positive health outcome among care seekers. The ability to maintain a competent information system is one of the most critical responsibilities of the members of the medical team to uphold a high quality and efficient health care; failure to do so may result to injury, and even loss of lives as errors in medication, misdiagnosis, and inability to provide the appropriate treatment can be triggered by ineffective storage of data.

In the recent years, the use of technology in managing information about medications, doctors’ orders, laboratory results, vital signs, nurses’ notes, and other data related to a specific patient, has been tested and employed by institutions to determine its capability to improve the outcomes of the patient care provided by the health care team. According to Winter et al., (2011), a health information system (HIS) is a system that which “comprises all the information processing” involved in healthcare delivery through the use of interlinked computers that allow a centralized storage of data for the different health departments and individuals (e.g., pharmacy, laboratory, nursing department, physicians, etc.) which contribute to the overall care provided to patients.

Although some studies pointed out the lack of specificity of the benefits of HIS to healthcare institutions, its disadvantages (e.g., ethical issues related to information privacy, human-computer interaction problems, etc.) as well as its cost (Kuhn & Giuse, 2001), findings from other reliable researches serve proof to the emerging importance of keeping a centralized health electronic records storage (Chaudhry et al., 2006). The implementation of a hospital information system in Limpopo Province, South Africa was one failed case (Littlejohns, Wyatt, & Garvican, 2003).

However, in a review of literature, Chaudhry et al. (2006) noted that studies involving the Regenstrief Insitute, Partners HealthCare, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Intermountain Health Care, among others, have showed an increase in overall quality and efficiency of health care with less medical errors and timely delivery of services by using a computerized health system. Despite ethical claims relative to privacy issues, the convenience of a centralized, computerized storage of data gives managers from the executive level the ability to monitor or maintain a holistic surveillance of the type of health care that the institution has to offer to its clients aside from the other specific advantages that this HIS offers to the members of health team that personally delivers the care to patients (e.g., easy access to laboratory results, medication lists, nurses’ notes, and physician orders as they are stored in one electronic file per patient, and others).

Moreover, the benefits also include “increased adherence to guideline-based care. and decreased medication errors” (Chaudhry et al., 2006, p. 742). With proper management, HIS can also be utilized in institution-wide clinical research to identify the weak points in the health care system applied so that strategic interventions will be formulated in the managerial level and later applied by the healthcare professionals assigned in the field (Haux, 2006). As this electronic information system will be utilized and accepted by the direct health care providers, improvement in data management will not be the only benefit.

Future movements to create trans-institutional linkages for a wider-coverage of information system will permit higher authorities to see the bigger picture of health care as regional, national, or even global situation monitoring and surveillance will be warranted, as supported by Haux (2006). Control of who are allowed to access the data, however, must be skillfully employed. Nevertheless, further studies must be initiated so that steps on how to lessen the disadvantages of utilizing electronic health information system will be identified.

References Chaudry, B., et al. (2006). Systematic review: impact of health information technology on quality, efficiency, and costs of medical care. Annals of Internal Medicine, 144 (10), pp. 742-752. Haux, R. (2006, March). Health information systems -- past, present, future. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 75 (3), pp. 282-299. Kuhn, K. A., & Giuse, D. A. (2001). From hospital information systems to health information system: problem, challenges, perspectives. Methods of Information in Medicine, 40, pp. 275-87. Littlejohns, P.

, Wyatt, J. C., & Garvican, L. (2003). Evaluating computerized health information systems: hard lessons still to be learnt. British Medical Journal, 326 (7324), pp. 860-863. Winter, A., Haux, R., Ammenwerth, E., Brigl, B., Hellrung, N., & Jahn, F. (2011). Health information systems: architectures and strategies, 2nd ed. London, UK: Springer.