Health Information System

Content

● Introduction
● Purpose of HIS
● What Are the Different Types of Health Information Systems?
● Benefits of Health Information System
● Important Features of Health Information Systems
● The Essentials of Health Information Systems and Technology
● Challenges faced in a health information system
● The Future of Health Information Systems
Introduction:

Technology has become a vital tool for healthcare. Clinicians and healthcare
professionals use it every day to improve patient care and streamline processes. A
critical aspect of healthcare technology is a health information system (HIS).

Health Information System is a technology-driven system that makes the process

of sharing protected health information (PHI) between organizations and providers
really hassle-free. Also, because of this system, patients are able to get seamless
and coordinated treatment from healthcare providers.

System that captures, stores, manages or transmits information related to the health
of individuals or the activities of organizations that work within the health sector.

The implementation of this system helps in improving the quality of patient care,
reducing operational cost, making administration data error-free and shaping the
entire internal management process more organized.

Health Information Systems are bringing revolution in healthcare service. In

assistance with the robust systems in hospitals and medical procedures, not only
the efficiency of the professionals will be increased but also their work becomes
easier and more organized. As a result, they put a focus on giving better care to the
patients. In a nutshell, HIS offers a win-win situation for both the patients and the
healthcare providers.
Purpose of HIS
HIS is a collection of data which is related to the health in healthcare environment.
The main purpose of HIS is used to gather, store, manage and analyze.

The purpose of HIS is to develop the healthcare plans, Improve the outcomes for
patients and properly allocate the organizations resources.

The data stored in HIS is of two types: Clinical and Non-Clinical. The clinical data
is the direct information about the patients and the comorbidities, their medical
history, previous surgical interventions and medical procedures.
The Non- clinical data is the information which is not directly related to patients.
Such as the geographic reach of the patients in the hospital, and is used to get an
estimated area from where the patients are coming for treatment.

Understanding the purpose:

It is done with 4 Major parts

1) Data Analytics
2) Collaboration with HIS
3) Population Health Management
4) Cost Control

Data Analytics- The data is being constantly generated in the healthcare industry
and HIS helps to store and analyze it. Data analytics helps organizations to capture
data, interpret and put it to use. The data such as surgical volume, hospital stay,
health trends of patients, insurance claims and billing.

Collaboration with HIS:

It is done to transfer the data and records easily. It helps to provide information to
medical practitioners at every stage of the patient's treatment. It makes
collaborative patient care seamless as the data gets easily accessible to all the
doctors present.
Population Health Management:
It is used to identify the trends in the health concerns of the community. It is a type
of statistical analysis and provides tools for health officials. The cases for COVID-
19 tracking and monitoring the regional outbreaks were done by the help of HIS.

Cost Control:
The HIS helps to contain the cost of the treatment as it helps to study the similar
case studies and make the treatment decisions for the patients by the medical
practitioners. It also helps in allocating the resources and staff in the healthcare
organization.

What Are the Different Types of Health Information Systems?

Different systems work together under a broader IT Environment.

Patient facing HIS

Patient portals:
Benefits: access previous records, follow-ups, schedule visits, insurance, etc.

Examples: Tata memorial hospital, NHP, Dhirubai Ambani Hospital and many
more.
2. Provider Facing HIS
• These systems are intended for providers
• Benefits include: information about population health, information to
carry out decisions for a particular treatment.

3. Cloud based HIS

• Common records are made accessible across different departments within
a health organization.
• Plays an important role in collaborative care as the journey of a patient is
not always linear.
• Patients seek input from various providers, therapists and specialists.
• Benefits: Patient history, keep providers on the same page.
Benefits of Health Information System:
Health information systems tend to target efficiency and data management. The
main drivers of health information systems are:

1. Data analytics:

The healthcare industry constantly produces data. Health information systems help
gather, compile and analyze health data to help manage population health and
reduce healthcare costs. Then healthcare data analysis can improve patient care.

2. Organized & Coordinated Treatment Process:

Health Information System is a technology-driven system that makes the process

of sharing protected health information (PHI) between organizations and providers
really hassle-free. Also, because of this system, patients are able to get seamless
and coordinated treatment from healthcare providers.

3. Collaborative care:

Patients often need treatments from different healthcare providers. Health

information systems — such as health information exchanges (HIEs) — allow
healthcare facilities to access common health records.

4. Cost control:
 Using digital networks to exchange healthcare data creates efficiencies and cost
savings. When regional markets use health information exchanges to share data,
healthcare providers see reduced costs. On a smaller scale, hospitals aim for the
same efficiencies with electronic health records.

5. Population health management:

Health information systems can aggregate patient data, analyze it and identify
trends in populations. The technology also works in reverse. Clinical decision
support systems can use big data to help diagnose individual patients and treat
them.

6. Circumvention of Medical Errors:

As Health Information Systems maintains less paperwork and makes everything

computerized and automated, you get the error-free reports and information. As a
result, various medication errors can be avoided and patients’ safety can be ensured

Important Features in HIS

Patient Portal
The patient portal is an important feature of the Health Information System. It is a
platform, similar to the electronic health record, but what makes it different is that
through these patients are capable of having secure online access to their medical
records, scheduling doctor appointment, communicating with the doctor, check
medical bills and processing payment online. All they need is a smart device to
avail the maximum benefits of the feature. Instead of following the age-old process
of scheduling a doctor’s appointment, they can just log in to their account in the
patient portal, have a look at the availability of their doctors and make an
appointment as per their convenience and doctor’s availability. After scheduling
the appointment, they can check the bill and make the payment or set the details
for future payments. The popularity of Patient portal is increasing day by day
because it improves the accessibility for the patients and maintains the
transparency between the patients and their treatment processes. Therefore
hospitals opt for this to improve their patients’ satisfaction level and build
themselves as reliable ones.

Medical Billing
Online medical billing feature manages all the billing tasks in less amount of time
than usual. Gone are the days when hospitals used to spend a major amount of time
in managing all the appointments and billings. Now with medical billing feature,
patients’ billing, insurance details, patient tracking, and payment process –
everything can be handled with efficiency. You can even receive notification alert
if there is any delay or other issues in payment so that you can take action
accordingly. Moreover, the claim scrubbing tool in medical billing helps you detect
any type of medical errors way before they start to slow down your management
process. It includes scanning and getting rid of any LCD, CCI or HIPAA based
errors, and delivering you latest updated reports.

Patient Scheduling
Just like the patient portal, with patient scheduling patients can schedule their own
appointments by simply logging into their respective accounts. This way they
neither have to wait in line in front of the doctor’s chamber or clinic nor need to
call the clinic again and again to make an appointment. All the facilities will be
available 24/7 in just a tap away. They can even match their convenience with the
availability of the doctor and book appointment accordingly. This feature is
beneficial for the care providers as well. They can assign their staff, test rooms,
and specialty apparatus (if needed).

ePrescribing
This software in Health Information Systems speeds up the complete prescription
process, usually done by the staff members of the medical practitioner’s office.
They can send and fill the prescriptions of every patient to the pharmacies via
online. Also, they can track the entire process and take any action if needed. This
way the whole process becomes quick, safe and error-free.

Remote Patient Monitoring

This is another promising feature of Health Information Systems, enabling the
access of patients’ details easy, helping care providers deliver good health care to
the patients and minimizing severe condition expenses. Remote Patient Monitoring
(RPM) is really useful for patients who are suffering from chronic health issues.
Doctors use the information collected through RPM for monitoring patients’ health
status. Also, with these details, they can foretell or put a stop to the situations that
would or else need serious medical intervention. Other than chronic health care,
RPM is helpful for other cases as well, such as care for the senior citizens, care
after discharging a patient, treatment for behavioral health and substance abuse,
etc.

Master Patient Index

Master Patient Index is quite popular across many hospitals and large organizations
of medical practices. With this technology, one needs to feed the patients’
information once. After that, it gets connected to multiple databases and as a result,
this data can be useful in the future for other lab tests and clinical departments.
There will be no need to feed the data manually every time. The ease of access to
patients’ details is the most important benefit of using the Master Patient Index.
Also, it is completely automated, reduces the possibility of errors and improves the
safety of the information

The Essentials of Health Information Systems:

Health information systems can benefit a health care organization in several ways.
To realize these benefits, however, the organization must put the proper
technological infrastructure in place. This includes both fundamental software and
hardware requirements.

Effective implementation of health information systems requires a secure wireless

network, which connects all associated devices and enables information to be
accessed and shared from anywhere within the organization.

It’s also critical to have convenient workstations from which providers, nurses,
technicians, and administrators can access records. These may include desktops,
laptops, and/or tablets.
Additional considerations for the implementation of health information systems
include:

● Comprehensive employee training, encompassing not only the efficient use

of the information systems but also best practices for maintaining network

security and ensuring patient privacy.

● Data encryption and backup, both of which can help safeguard data from

cyberattacks, hackers, or system failures.

● Cyber insurance, which can protect the organization from legal liability in

the event that patient data is compromised.

Who oversees the implementation of health information systems?

While providers and nurses may use and benefit from these systems, it’s usually an
administrator who puts the health information strategy into place and ensures that
it’s properly maintained.

In a larger hospital setting there is likely to be an IT team, led by a chief

information officer (CIO) or a chief technology officer (CTO). In smaller practices,
this responsibility may fall to the practice manager.

As information technology becomes increasingly central to health care,

administrators must be familiar with the role data can play in shaping patient care
strategies.

Indeed, health information systems provide an avenue for hospital decision-makers

to make the best possible use of resources, achieving optimal patient outcomes as
efficiently as possible.

Challenges faced by Health Information systems:

- High prices.
- Lack of return on investment.
- The Technology Lag.
 - Complexities involved & poor adoption rates by doctors.
- Gap between Design expectations & Design reality: stiffness of technology.
- Technical rationality: a materialistic perspective towards a humane concept.
- Security issues regarding the healthcare data.

The Future of Health Information Systems:

1. The need for institutional and (inter-) national HIS-strategies
It is obvious, at least from my point of view, that strategic information
management has now to be considered as an important task in the continuing
process of maintaining and improving health information systems, in order to
improve health care. It has to be implemented not only in health care institutions
such as hospitals. Institutional information management strategies will have to be
accompanied by regional, national and international strategies.
Strategic information management should now consider the developments
mentioned before: on the global access to HIS, the extended HIS users including
health consumers, the extended use of data including research, the new types of
data and
the health monitoring opportunities. Conflicts will arise and will have to be solved.
There will be promises and perils. We have to find a balance to preserve privacy
and to get the necessary support by ubiquitous computing resources for our health
and quality of life.

2. The need to explore new architectural HIS styles

It also seems to be clear, at least I am convinced, that architectural styles of these
new health information systems will again change in the new global environment.
Besides the need for research, this has to be considered also and already today for
the practice of information processing and information management. Traditional
institution-centered architectures will probably not be adequate, when dealing with
regional up to global ‘transinstitutional’ information system architectures and
infrastructures.
This development will fortunately lead to more patient-centered (not institution-
centered) HIS architectures. We will have to explore architectures, providing
reliable services in the conflicting field of being less redundant, less transcriptive,
and functionally more lean, but not too sensitive for local, regional or even global
blackouts.
Development and investigation of adequate transinstitutional information system
architectures and organizational frameworks that support patient-centered, shared
care will among others include exploring networking care facilities in health
regions (e.g. hospitals, practices), diagnostic and therapeutic telemedicine, as well
as home
care.
3. The need for education in health and biomedical informatics
Another immediate consequence or need, in my point of view, is the need for
appropriate education in medical informatics, respectively, health informatics or
biomedical informatics. Because of the mentioned progress in informatics,
including the described developments in health information systems, educational
courses and even programs are needed, in order to have well-educated health care
professionals or even health informatics/medical informatics specialists, with
sufficient knowledge and skills
to systematically process data, information and knowledge in medicine and health
care. Let me especially mention the educational initiatives of the European Centre
for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Epidemiology (EuroMISE Centre) at
Prague.
Because of this need for education, the International Medical Informatics
Association (IMIA) developed and published recommendations on education in
health and medical informatics. Lectures and practicums on health information
systems should play an important role in such educational programs, as knowledge
and skills in this field are of high relevance for health/medical informatics
graduates.
4. The need for research in health and biomedical informatics
Health information systems are in a phase of rapid development, with many
questions being still unsolved in terms of architecture, functionality and
management. As in my view, these new types of systems are urgently needed for
reorganizing health care in an aging society, there is a significant need for research
in various areas of health and biomedical informatics.
For rapid and successful progress on health information systems, it seems to me of
particular importance to do research in the following fields:
- development and investigation of appropriate trans-institutional information
system architectures supporting patient-centered, shared care, from networking
care facilities in health regions (e.g. hospitals, practices) to home care including,
diagnostic and therapeutic telemedicine, health monitoring, the use of ubiquitous
ICT infrastructures, and providing secure authentication;
- development and investigation of methods for the strategic management of health
information systems, especially concerning information processing in health care
regions, including;

- development and investigation of methods for modeling and evaluating health

information systems as well as studying HIS properties through evaluation studies;

- development and investigation regarding comprehensive electronic patient

records, providing appropriate access for health care professionals as well as for
patients, supporting patient-oriented use of patient data in the broad sense as
described here, e.g. including home care and health monitoring facilities, and also
facilitating clinical and epidemiological research and health care planning;

- investigation of powerful, innovative ICT tools for the various users of health
information systems;

- development and investigation of methods for medical data analysis (‘medical

data mining’) based on the new information system architectures and electronic
patient records and considering the broad variety of data types including,
e.g., image and DNA data.