Question

HIM 500

HIM-500-Q4746 Healthcare Informatics 19TW4 000 000 Course Menu Tools. mySNHU Online Student Services Shapiro Library Help Discussions List View Topic 1-1 Discussion: History of Health Informatics Subscribe Read the resources for this module and concentrate on reviewing the history of healthcare information management and informatics. In this discussion topic, consider the following: Where has healthcare information management been historically? How has the introduction of technology dramatically changed the landscape? How has the introduction of technology increased the need for and importance of proper management? Support your answer with relevant resources. In response to your peers, discuss the information they have provided. How is the information useful or not useful to you as a professional in this field of study? To complete this assignment, review the Discussion Rubric document.

Answer 1

1. The United States has a long history of health information management (HIM). The health information industry has been around officially since 1928 when the American College of Surgeons (ACOS) sought to improve the standards of records being created in clinical settings. HIM trends continue to make news today thanks to the new implementation of electronic health records (EHR).

Paper medical records were steadily maintained from the 1920s onward, but the advancing technology of the ‘60s and ‘70s introduced the beginnings of a new system. The development of computers encouraged pioneering American universities to explore the marriage of computers and medical records.

However, interest in computers continued to increase. Individual departments of the healthcare industry such as patient registration recognized the usefulness of keeping electronic records. Early EHR software began to be adopted within certain departments. Healthcare software development continued to focus on these single application uses into the early 1980s.

The ‘80s produced huge leaps in healthcare software development. The advent of computerized registration meant patients were able to benefit from a more efficient electronic check-in process for the first time ever. The introduction of the master patient index (MPI), a database of patient information used across all the departments of a healthcare organization, was also a massive success.

These wins encouraged software developers to continue creating with a new focus on individual hospital departments. Departments like Radiology and Laboratory adapted well to the new software, and computer healthcare applications began appearing on the market.

However, these applications still faced limitations. Computer applications were being used within healthcare walls, but none of them could communicate with each other or be viewed by neighbouring departments.

A wave of medical errors and patient deaths caused by healthcare providers renewed the search for a viable EHR system in 2000. Electronic health records would allow “providers to make better decisions and provide better care” while “reducing the incidence of medical error by improving the accuracy and clarity of medical records. President George W. Bush called for computerized health records in his 2004 State of the Union Address. An EHR revolution had begun.

Present-day healthcare organizations are implementing functional EHR systems with more intensity than ever thanks to President Obama’s passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) in 2009. ARRA “requires the adoption of Electronic Medical Records by 2014 for seventy per cent of the primary care provider population,” according to the US Department of Health and Human Services.

2. Technology is having an impact on our lives everywhere we go. From the way we shop to the food that we eat, technology is changing everything we do.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in healthcare, where technology is helping us beyond convenience, it is helping save lives.

The impacts have been substantial already, but in future, these developments are likely to be even more pronounced.

Non-Invasive Techniques

Surgery is always a dangerous procedure, regardless of what is being done. The reason that good surgeons are some of the best-paid people in the world is that their job is incredibly difficult and requires considerable skill.

New technology is making some surgical procedures less likely, which is, therefore, decreasing the risk of death that every surgery brings.

We have seen through the use of pulses, lasers, ultrasounds and magnetic stimulation that these techniques can be considerably safer than traditional surgical procedures.

Some of these are not new, such as X-Ray imaging, but we are seeing through new technology that the pace of change and the levels of success are constantly increasing. The future is bright for this kind of medical care and is a key element in reducing the chances of death whilst being treated.

3D Printing

Although currently limited mainly to prosthetics as common use for 3D printing, the truth is that it has almost endless possibilities when the technology develops further.

We have seen that 3D printing can provide prosthetics at a fraction of the cost of traditional methods. They can even be made into a completely custom design.

In future 3D printing could potentially create organic matter to order, which means that it could be anything from new skin to match exactly in skin grafts, to fully formed hearts or lungs that could be transplanted.

M-Health

M-Health allows data to be collected about a patient through everyday life. This is then collected by a mobile device and can be transmitted to a doctor directly or stored in a database to track how a patient is reacting to treatment over time.

The benefits of this are hard to overstate. It gives doctors the kind of insight that they would never be able to achieve through traditional time slots and clinical evaluations. These sessions will have significant time constraints and also are experienced outside of a patient’s regular routine.

Having access to this data gives doctors the unique opportunity to view the patient’s reaction when outside of a clinical environment, which aids in recovery, treatment and condition monitoring.

It can even be configured to alert the patient and doctor if levels drop or rise sharply and may require medical attention.

Genetics Database

The genetics database may not be something that many people will be aware of on an individual level, but across the healthcare, the community will have a huge impact.

It will give clinicians a huge database that can be used to establish the best treatments, the way that diseases affect different demographics or even how viruses spread in particular areas. It will essentially be the best possible opportunity for doctors to make the best decisions about the treatment of patients through crowdsourced medical information.

It will allow the best possible treatments to be administered that will not only suit the individual but also make considerable differences to the effectiveness of them, based on in-depth information. It will mean that somebody with certain blood pressure, of a particular age, from a specific place and with a certain activity rate, can get the treatment that is likely to be the most successful for them.

It also means that when outbreaks like the Ebola crisis of 2014 occur, the genetics of the disease from the earliest patients can help prevent the disease from spreading as rapidly in other areas of the population.

3. Technology management is a set of management disciplines that allows organizations to manage their technological fundamentals to create competitive advantage. It is very important for an organization to manage its technology strategically because when it is not well managed, it might result in a big loss in the organization. Managing technology involves planning, designing, optimizing, operation and control of technological products.

Technology management aims at maximizing the cost-effectiveness of investments in technology development which contributes to the value of an organization. If an organization fails to plan for its technology it might encounter issues like data loss or misuse of that technology by its employees. But if the organization creates a framework and plans for its technology, its output will increase.