Nursing Information Systems

Modern hospital information systems and patient care

Modern hospital information systems considerably improve the ability to collect and store patient information with the goal of enhancing patient care. Patient information ranging from detection to treatment plans, adverse reactions, vaccines, allergies, and test results provides healthcare providers with a complete and organized structure for determining their interactions with patients. The rapid adoption of information technologies in all aspects of society has allowed little time to consider the implications or devise strategies for utilizing these systems. A variety of organizations and institutions, such as hospitals, use or are in the process of implementing information systems in some capacity. The advanced growth of information technology has enabled hospital managers to realize information technology as a robust instrument to improve their institution’s productivity. Several hospitals all over the globe are in the phase of shifting away from manual and paper-based health information and adopting electronic health information in an effort to enhance patient outcome. This essay analyzes how the hospital information systems used in the delivery of patient care contributes to improved patient outcomes.

The hospital information systems and healthcare quality

The hospital information systems are intended to assist healthcare providers in retrieving and operating with patient data while supporting health care quality by means of harmonized information sharing (Tiina, Tarja, Paula, Marianne & Ilmari, 2009). Hospital information system was first established in the year 1980 with the aim of storing more general data like information from laboratory analysis (Tiina et al., 2009). The key aim of the present-day hospital information system is to coordinate information from all the healthcare-oriented activities like planning, harmonization, monitoring and decision-making. I chose the hospital information system since its adoption enhances the obtainability of the patient records by enabling the data to be available for patient care; to minimize the period of waiting for diagnostic information like the laboratory tests; and enhancing patient administration processes.

The Importance of the Hospital Information System

From the introduction of the hospital information system development, a number of health care policymakers and healthcare executives have struggled to diagnose aspects that impact the quality of patient care (Tiina et al., 2009). Many perceive that the quality of healthcare is improved by means of data gathered and obtained through the hospital information system. The hospital information system and data quality are interconnected with the support of successful, well-timed and suitable care services, minimization of health risk; competently restructuring healthcare and managerial tasks like collaborating with patients, their families, as well as other healthcare providers; keeping track of patient cognizance; and attaining strategic formation and community health management objectives (Newell, 2011).

Up-to-date Decisions by the Right people at the right time

The basic functions of the hospital information systems, as defined by the WHO are to gather, accumulate and review data, analyze, interpret, and communicate the results to others in order to help in the decision making procedures (Tan, 2008). This could perhaps imply enhancing physician access to laboratory results and minimizing obstacles between detections undertaken by various healthcare givers. In a broader sense, the decision making procedure can be improved by means of the adoption of a hospital-broad clinical decision support system, which reclaims bundles of information, enables rules to the data via tailored filters and updates the suitable persons at the suitable time. Data can differ from dynamic signs observed in the course of the day to on-demand lab outcomes (Newell, 2011).

Multi-dimensional Care, Data across the Spectrum

The latest hospital systems entail individuals instead of the health care givers; they entail decision and policy makers from the bottom to the top (Balaraman & Kosalram, 2013). This is the reason why hospital information systems encompass data gathering and analysis at four key intersections, which are: individual, health facility, public, and population investigation levels. At the individual level, the hospital information system entails scenarios, which foster the care of individual patients (Balaraman & Kosalram, 2013). The main aim at the patient level is to offer the appropriate care at suitable time by the right person, a treatment technique that is aimed at reducing costs and wastes and expressively improve healthcare delivery by means of personalized care. At the health facility level, the hospital information system aims at gathering data on a broad level like readmission rates, drug procurement information, medical errors, quality information and treatment results and enables the hospital management to better recognize resource requirements and implement them appropriately (Balaraman & Kosalram, 2013).

The public and the population investigation levels

assume enormous-picture techniques by observing the manner in which policy is impacting the country’s general health (Balaraman & Kosalram, 2013). Population management is the combination of patient information through several hospital information technology resources, the analysis of that information into actionable patient data, and the approaches by which care givers can enhance both financial and clinical results (Balaraman & Kosalram, 2013). For instance, practices combine data across various patient populations like patients suffering from obesity, diabetes, and heart disease in an effort to keep track and match up the results to better coordinate care. Finally, the public health surveillance information system entails the constant, efficient gathering, review and analysis of health-related data required to outline issues and offer up-to-date solutions (Balaraman & Kosalram, 2013).

In my opinion, the hospital information system

assists in attaining improved quality, accessibility, and efficiency of healthcare for all. The successful utilization of this system aids in quality improvement of healthcare, thereby enhancing high-quality care and patient outcomes. Healthcare givers utilize this information in an effort to come up with suitable decisions like knowing where to distribute additional vaccines to curb an outbreak of infection like in the case of Ebola virus (Newell, 2011).

Conclusion

In conclusion, the hospital information system is an important part of the present-day healthcare. This system gathers a broad range of information from individual patients, treatments, clinical history, allergies, and diagnosis. They also offer information to explore metrics for a hospital facility or the whole population. The hospital information system does not only enhance patient outcomes, but also the data collected by these system offers a picture of the financial facets of healthcare and displays areas where healthcare givers can perhaps improve on.

References

Balaraman, P. & Kosalram, K. (2013). E –Hospital Management & Hospital Information Systems – Changing Trends. International Journal of Information Engineering and Electronic Business, 5(1), 50-58. http://dx.doi.org/10.5815/ijieeb.2013.01.06

Newell, S. (2011). Special section on healthcare information systems. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 20(2), 158-160. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jsis.2011.05.002

Tan, J. (2008). Healthcare information systems and informatics (1st ed.). Hershey, PA: Medical Information Science Reference.

Tiina, M., Tarja, S., Paula, A., Marianne, M., & Ilmari, R. (2009). The outcomes of regional healthcare information systems in health care: A review of the research literature. International Journal of medical informatics, 78(11), 757.