Domains of health information systems
There are three main domains of health information systems – financial/ administrative, clinical (patient management), and data analytics. The first relates to the issues of registering patients and scheduling initial and follow-up visits. More importantly, the administrators can review the billing information (Joshi & Nash, 2017). Lastly, when it comes to the financial domain, any given healthcare facility is able to manage health information by means of their health information system.
The second domain includes EHRs and clinical information systems. Within the framework of this domain, clinicians can pay special attention to pharmacy and lab tests. Radiology is also closely related to patient management domain. Clinicians have the possibility to manage cases and provide their clients with the care of the best quality (Miriovsky, Shulman, & Abernethy, 2012). The last domain relates to taking care of data warehouses and making sure that all the clinical data is safely stored in a protected repository.
The administrators are also able to follow registries and create special dashboards intended to help them to manage hospital performance (Joshi & Nash, 2017). The clinical domain has to be the most impactful because it ensures that a direct connection between health information technologies and patients is possible.
Information Technology: Implications for Healthcare Quality
Telehealth is the concept of real-time communication between patients and clinicians. It can be used for remote patient monitoring and removes the necessity of scheduling real-life appointments (Weinstein et al., 2014). There are several reasons that validate its impact on clinical nursing practice. First of all, it majorly contributes to the quality of care. For instance, in the area of mental health, telehealth technologies displayed outstanding results that included patient satisfaction and positive outcomes.
Also, telehealth can be used to provide care to the patients from suburban areas and any other individuals that cannot be treated locally. Telehealth can change healthcare because it allows patients to contact their care providers from anywhere (Weinstein et al., 2014). These advantages are expected to reduce the cost of healthcare and improve the efficiency of healthcare facilities, not to mention the huge impact of telehealth on the treatment of chronic diseases.
Also, it can be beneficial to those healthcare providers that are interested in team-based care because even non-clinician can take part in the treatment process established by telemedicine (Weinstein et al., 2014). The last advantage of telehealth that can transform the healthcare is the ability to provide information to the patients in different languages and support the majority of clients’ requirements.
Important concepts and how technology can contribute to a safer health system
The first concept that significantly contributes to a safer health system is the rising popularity of EHR systems. Knowing that the latter can help clinicians store even the most secret information without being afraid to either lose or disclose it, EHRs can be considered to be one of the critical innovations in healthcare (Joshi & Nash, 2017). The second concept that cannot be ignored is increasing privacy and security of patient data. The days when all the paperwork had to be stored physically are gone.
Nowadays, we can enjoy the benefits of storing patient records electronically. Advanced protective mechanisms allow practitioners to encrypt data and manage it remotely without worrying about losing that data to a fire or security breach (Joshi & Nash, 2017). The last concept is the development of mobile health. It helps practitioners to personalize the treatment process and give patients from any location a sense of security (Joshi & Nash, 2017). The development of mobile technologies led to a situation where any patient can be treated without even leaving their home or bed at all.
References
Joshi, M., & Nash, D. B. (2017). The healthcare quality book: Vision, strategy, and tools (3rd ed.). Chicago, IL: Health Administration Press.
Miriovsky, B. J., Shulman, L. N., & Abernethy, A. P. (2012). Importance of health information technology, electronic health records, and continuously aggregating data to comparative effectiveness research and learning health care. Journal of Clinical Oncology, 30(34), 4243-4248.
Weinstein, R. S., Lopez, A. M., Joseph, B. A., Erps, K. A., Holcomb, M., Barker, G. P., & Krupinski, E. A. (2014). Telemedicine, telehealth, and mobile health applications that work: Opportunities and barriers. The American Journal of Medicine, 127(3), 183-187.