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QUESTION
Week 1 discussion
Week 1 discussion:
Identify a health information technology
system, explain how it improves healthcare
outcomes. Identify the organization you
work for uses this system.
• Respond to discussion question in
Moodle by week 2
• Atleast 250 words
• Atleast 2 references within 5 years
(Atleast 1 reference must be the
course textbook)
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| Subject | Nursing | Pages | 4 | Style | APA |
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Answer
Health Information Technology Systems
In the world today, automated and interoperable healthcare information systems goes in a long way to improve medical care, increase efficiency, reduce errors, lower costs, as well as improve patient satisfaction. This highlights the high importance that information technology (IT) has on health and health care in general. Health information technology encompasses the technology and the infrastructure used to record, analyze, and share patient health data across computerized systems (Wager and Glaser, 2017). Some of these technologies include health record systems, personal health tools, and community shared information. This paper seeks to identify a health information technology system, explain how it improves healthcare outcomes, and identify how the organization I work for uses this system.
One of the cornerstones of health information technology system is the electronics health records (EHR). The EHR is a person’s official and a systematized collection of health information that is electronically-stored and is shared among multiple healthcare providers and agencies (Patel et al., 2019). EHR may include a range of data including medical history, laboratory test results, demographics, radiology images, vital signs, and other important information about the patient. The system is systematically designed to store data accurately and to continuously capture the state of a patient across time. This is eminent as the system helps to eliminate paperwork and having to track down a patient’s previous records from files – which is both tedious and cumbersome. Moreover, it helps in minimizing data replication and data loss in the hospital.
EHR has in many ways improved healthcare outcomes across the globe since it came into being. First, EHR can aid in patient diagnosis as a complete overview of the patient data is readily available and a better diagnosis can be made from the history of the patient. Moreover, the systematic recording of data shows a certain trend of the patient’s health, thus aiding in diagnosing a disease sooner – making it manageable. Additionally, the system is effective in identifying and reducing errors and improving patient safety (Lawrence et al., 2019). The system automatically checks for errors and problems whenever a certain medication is prescribed for the client and then alerts the clinician of a potential conflict. This reduces errors and thus aids in patient safety. What is more, EHR is effective in improving public health outcomes that having beneficial effects on the health of a group of patients (Adler and Stead, 2015). This is because health providers are able to specifically care for a group of patients who suffer from specific medical condition, taking a common medication, or are eligible for a specific preventive measure. This helps to improve the health outcomes of various individuals within a region.
The organization that I work for uses the EHR system to effectively share patient data and improve patient outcome in various ways. This was implemented through a strategic orientation system that goes hand in hand with the organization’s major goal – to improve patient satisfaction. The organization has fully adopted the health IT system in all the departments and has enabled access to every information within the connection. Moreover, the organization has trained its employees to effectively use the system and avoid mistakes. This has made the system to be fully integrated in the organizational activities and thus reap the benefits of using the same.
In conclusion, it is evident that automated means of healthcare provision has largely helped in improving outcomes in the healthcare industry. This paper has identified one of the health information technology systems – EHR. As has been elaborated above, the system is effective in improving the patient outcome in various ways. This has enabled it to be adopted in various health organization. Therefore, for better health provision and health outcome, many organizations ought to adopt the same technique.
Adler, N. E., & Stead, W. W. (2015). Patients in context—EHR capture of social and behavioral determinants of health. New England Journal of Medicine, 372(8), 698-701.
Lawrence, J. E., Cundall-Curry, D., Stewart, M. E., Fountain, D. M., & Gooding, C. R. (2019). The use of an electronic health record system reduces errors in the National Hip Fracture Database. Age and ageing, 48(2), 285-290.
Patel, M. R., Friese, C. R., Mendelsohn-Victor, K., Fauer, A. J., Ghosh, B., Bedard, L., ... & Manojlovich, M. (2019). Clinician perspectives on electronic health records, communication, and patient safety across diverse medical oncology practices. Journal of oncology practice, JOP-18.
Wager, K. A., Lee, F. W., & Glaser, J. P. (2017). Health care information systems: a practical approach for health care management. John Wiley & Sons.