Introduction
Health information technology is understood to mean the use of several electronic methods of managing information on health and medical care of individuals and groups (George Woods Foundation, 2006). The changes being experienced in the healthcare sector have enhanced the need for a process that can save money. To address the real problem, it is considered that the adoption of a quality information heath care system will be the solution. A quality information health care system will furthermore improve efficiency and effectiveness and enhance the quality of the healthcare system. It is this problem that has led to the prominence of information quality as an important aspect of the healthcare system. Adopting an eHealth system has facilitated faster delivery of health care. Health information quality system was selected as the research topic for this paper due to the widespread cases of duplication of medical examinations and the need for economies of scale by health institutions. This topic has also been selected to solve the problem of heterogeneous health information systems. Poor data quality is linked to the numerous deaths that occur in the process of hospitalization hence healthcare information systems are critical in the implementation of eHealth.
The scope of this paper involves the conceptualization of health as a study area that covers medical informatics applications in facilitating the management and delivery of healthcare. Health information system pays attention to healthcare delivery. This is because healthcare information technologies have become a major issue in the medical field. The need to advance it is due to the inability of the medical fraternity to embrace a computerized mode of storing data. If the issue of healthcare information system is not adopted then, duplication of medical examinations, slow rate of health care delivery, and deaths from hospitalization will increase (Tobias, Peter & Lars, n.d.).
Health Information System Quality
Health information system quality can be understood practically, empirically, literature-based, and theoretically. A health information system can store and process information concerning the health care delivery of a patient. They are commonly used in confirming the eligibility and billing for medical insurance and government programs like Medicaid and Medicare. But they are not clinical support systems hence they are not used to track and evaluate health care progress. Health information systems are capable of supporting, tracking, and also evaluating health care delivery and both are built on Electronic Medical Record (EMR). The information contained includes the patient’s history, all tests, diagnoses and the results, the comments of the physician, and medical images like X-rays. The unique feature of EMR is that it can be shared and can be analyzed by different physicians in a different health institution in its simplest form. The difficulty of having single electronic health records (EHR) spanning across various health organizations, together with interoperability and regional health information networks often allows health organizations to share EMR when required, they also allow for the sharing of patients’ information when required. EMRs should have confidentiality and privacy for security purposes; this can be achieved through fixing access controls like passwords, digital signatures, and encryptions (Bray, n.d.).
There are seven types of health information systems. These types are:
- Electronic Medical Record: this is the same as the electronic equivalent of a patient’s record on paper.
- Electronic Health Record: this is the complete set of records that contains all the patient’s information all over many different health care institutions.
- Personal Health Records: this is obtained, controlled, and maintained by the patient or any third party and not the health care institutions.
- Patient-based Health Record: this is the electronic patient information that is controlled and maintained by the payers like insurance companies and it includes the procedure, the cost, and the payment information.
- Computerized Physician Order Entry: this is a system that allows the physician to make orders electronically.
- Clinical decision Support Systems: this is founded on the guidelines and the research. In this system, a physician can suggest possible diagnoses and treatments that he may consider.
- Electronic Pharmacy System: these are systems that permit the physicians to electronically enter prescriptions which can later be checked for drug interactions.
The key concept in a health information system is interoperability; “this is a standard process whereby the health information systems can communicate with each other to enable physicians in separate and different health organizations to assess patient’s information even if the patient uses the services different health organization” (Bray, n.d., p. 1).
Paper Work Efficiency
Modern medical records are still dominated by paperwork and it is only estimated that approximately four percent of physicians have a fully operational electronic health record whereas close to 13 percent of the physicians have basic electronic health records. The strong advocacy for electronic health records is largely due to the problems that are associated with paperwork. Paperwork has several disadvantages which include limited sharing, analysis, and evaluation of medical information; they lack uniformity and are isolated and inert: they can only be read and can not be processed through other healthcare applications. These limitations of paperwork have made it hard to coordinate patient care across all multiple health care organizations. The paperwork also hinders efficiency and evaluation by the medical professionals (Bray, n.d.).
Features of a Complete EHR
A complete and fully operational Electronic Health Records (EHR) should support the following functions: first is the collection of patient’s health information and the data, also it should support results management, it should order entry management requirements and lastly, it should support clinical decisions.
EHR manages billing, payroll, decisions support staffing and scheduling. It manages clinical information in fields like patient registration, radiology, ambulatory, pharmacy, and laboratory (Nair, 2007).
The Integrated Serverless Backup (ISB) which is a component of EHR facilitates the utilization of Storage Area Network which creates snapshots of images that can be retrieved live without any database concerns.
There is also the Integrated Disaster Recovery (IDR) that creates and splits off a pint in time data images with block-level duplications of data into remote and can be brought live without any more recovery procedures (Nair, 2007).
Electronic health records facilitate communication among and between physicians and health institutions. It also should have the capacity to integrate information so that all the data relating to the particular patient can be synchronized. It should coordinate medical actions among multiple users. An electronic health record also supports all financial and administrative functions (Nair, 2007).
Improvement of Health Information Quality
A health information system can be improved in the following ways:
Involving all levels in changes to the health information management system; concerns the involvement of people at all levels of the data chain to determine what is needed and how it will be used. Improving the paper-based system is critical in improving health information systems; stakeholders are placing a lot of attention on the IT aspect of the information system when the reality is that the basics of diagnosis, coding and reporting should be first in place.
A continuous and reliable feedback loop should be maintained. Health workers can only be motivated in the implementation of health information systems if they see the fruits of their work (Robert Wood Foundation, 2006).
Benefits of Health Information Systems
The important advantage of a health information system is that information can easily be shared by various providers. This is necessary for patients with several cases of chronic conditions who visit different physicians. Health information systems enable a computerized and quick check on adverse drug interactions and can recommend alternative dosage guidelines and particular patent allergies when a physician is prescribing particular drugs.
Health information systems, especially when orders are written, can check for compliance with the recommended guidelines and make suggestions based on particular research findings and it can also enable the physicians to analyze if any, effective medical procedures.
Health information systems enable for computerized analysis of patient’s medical images in a sophisticated manner and this may result in better diagnosis. EMR or telemedicine facilitates diagnosis and treatment plans to be developed by experts who may not be available locally (Bray, n.d.).
Electronic health records which is the most important type of health information technology enhance efforts to track the distribution of information and to facilitate the development of policies in the field of medical health.
The health information system also has safety benefits: with the invention of EMR, there is a high potential that death and harm, drug event rates, reduction in medication errors will diminish. This will be as a result of an integrated system of alerts and reminders. Consequently, health information systems have potential health benefits; they will enhance disease prevention and facilitate better chronic disease management. This can be achieved through an efficient relay of a patient’s health care status, diagnosis, and other cases of self-reported health status.
The health information system also saves on patient’s costs: with the invention and development of health care information systems, patients do not have to travel to different doctors for medication; also they will not have to undertake numerous and repetitive medical tests with different physicians since the previous tests will be available in all health institutions through the Electronic Medical Records System (Hillestad, Bigelow, Bower, Girosi, Meili, Scoville &Taylor, 2005).
The health information system also enables stakeholders and decision-makers in the health sector to detect and control all emerging and endemic health problems and to monitor progress in achieving health goals. Moreover, the health information system empowers the community both individually and collectively to access and understand all the health-related information and to drive all changes and improvements in the health sector that will enhance the quality of services. Health information system strengthens the base of evidence that facilitate effective health policies which can permit evaluation and the scaling up of efforts. All this can improve governance, resource mobilization and ensure accountability (Hillestad et al., 2005).
Challenges of Health Information Systems
There are several challenges which are international, national and sub-national levels involved in the developing of an effective health management information systems. These are:
Low Levels of Public Will: the main building block of health information system is having a vital registration system and it is only less than half of the countries in the world that have a comprehensive registration system, this covers about a third of the total population in the globe. The major challenges arising from this are lack of or limited government capacity and lack of political will to make this vital registration mandatory for every citizen and this can hinder effective operation and actualization of health information systems. Gender bias, is also another challenge facing the actualizing of health information management system. This has the effect of hindering the recording of deaths and births hence making the monitoring maternal mortality difficult (Cindy, n.d.).
Integrating Public and Health Sector Information: there has always existed the challenge of establishing an integrated information system which emerges from competing interests of both public and private sector or between state and non-state actors. Non-state actors are reluctant to integrate with state actors because they have their established systems in place, or they feel nervous about giving details of their resource flows.
Lastly, there are constraints which fall in the operational realm and can affect a comprehensive implementation of health information management system. These are: getting coding right, the human resources capacity and data storage and use (Miles, 2009).
Way Forward
The way forward concerning this debate is to adopt personal health records which are private and secure. Interoperability and regional health information network which can ease patient information sharing. Consequently, the events that can cause failure in the implementation of health information records should be avoided at all costs. These factors include reality-rationality gap, the private- public sector gap and the country gaps. These gaps should be minimized for the success of the projects (Cindy, n.d.).
Conclusion
Health information systems have the potential capacity to upgrade the quality of healthcare information. With the advent of Electronic Medical Records, patient’s health information including the tests that have been made are all available, this will make it easy for any physician to learn from the previous medical records when dispensing any medication.
We have also learned that the implementation of medical health care information system should be executed in a particular manner. Undertaking the implementation of healthcare information system should be undertaken in step after step manner.
The implementation of healthcare information system is faced with numerous challenges. Among these challenges are the high costs of installation and procurement, reluctance by various health institutions to adopt this system and lack of trained personnel with knowledge and expertise on the running of Electronic Medical Records. It is also noticed that for health information systems to be fully operationalized, there should be concerted efforts by the medical fraternity, insurance companies and the government to eliminate any obstacle that might stand on the way of executing health information system policy.
Health Information system is the best way of revolutionizing the health care quality. The benefits accrued from Electronic Medical Records are so immense to be ignored. The cost saving factor is at the core of efforts to introduce it in medical institutions and health care providers. Health management information system is important since it incorporates all the healthcare data that is required by policy makers and medical practitioners in order to enhance population health. Despite this importance of health information system, few countries in the world have embraced this comprehensive way of gathering and storing data.
References
Bray, O. (2010). Health care information technology: A Key to quality and cost issues. Web.
Cindy, C. (n.d.). Health management information systems. DFID Health Resources Center. New York, NY: Cengage.
Hillestad, R., Bigeiow, J., Bower, A., Girosi, F., Meiii, R., Scoviile, R., & Tayior, R. (2005). Can electronic medical record systems transform health care? Potential health benefits, savings, and costs. The adoption of interoperable EMR systems could produce efficiency and safety savings of $142-$371 billion. Web.
Miles, P. (2009). Health information system and physician quality: Role if the American Board of Pediatrics maintenance of certification in improving children’ health care. Pediatrics 123(2), pp. 108-109.
Nair, S. (2007). Meditech: health care information system. Web.
Robert Wood Foundation. (2006). Health information technology in the United States: The information base for progress. Web.
Tobias, M., Peter, R & Lars, B. (n.d.). Improving Data Quality of Health Information System-A Holistic Design-Oriented Approach. Web.