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ABSTRACT

There have been various technological advancements that have greatly favored procedures and processes with the health care sector. In the health care systems, information collection, analysis, processing, and subsequently management has been a great challenge as health facilities have an explosive growth of information. Incorporation of technology has hence proved to be of great help to medical practitioners and patients. Hospitals in this day and age can remotely monitor their patients and manage their outcomes without extensively stretching hospital resources. Similarly, patients' outcomes can be influenced leading to satisfied patients and keen management of illnesses and infections. Technology has hence been an enabler in the health care system.

INTRODUCTION

With the emergence of newer and better ways and strategies to manage patients’ information in a health care facility, patients’ outcomes have hence improved. This has been made possible with the help of advancements in information technology. There are various opportunities that health care information technology presents to improve and transform data management and tracking in health care. Information system technologies have hence enhanced computer networks to best serve patients’ needs (Werder, 2017).

Health care information technology can hence be described as the use of information processing power through the use of computer hardware and software to store, share, and retrieve data relevant to patients' well-being. From information technology strategies, information, and knowledge can be shared and subsequently be used for decision making and communication purposes. Advancements in technologies related to information storage, retrieval, and sharing, has made it possible for certain aspects of health care to be foreseen to contribute to the overall well-being of patients. Data can subsequently be gathered, processed, and analyzed to be used in patient decision-making processes. Technology has hence improved patient safety and outcomes can be determined at an early stage (Werder, 2017).

With the huge numbers of data generated in hospitals, hospitals often get overwhelmed as it quite tedious manually processing raw data and a lot of time is taken before any sense can be generated out of raw data. Often manually processing data could lead to errors that could have rather dire consequences that negatively affect patient outcomes. With the explosive growth of information, there was a need for better information technology strategies to help in data management and processing. Information technology has hence provided better ways to deal with patient information conveniently without necessarily using too many human resources and any extra manpower can be put to better use. Therefore, this paper seeks to discuss ways in which technological advancement has influenced the health care system (Werder, 2017).

LITERATURE REVIEW

Health care information technology has a direct impact on a patient's experience and can as well influence patient outcomes. Health care can hence be used to communicate and influence patient safety and with the help of tools and strategies incorporated in scientific technologies pertaining to information, technology acts as an enabler and can help in the storage and retrieval of information regarding a patient. Information can be stored and indexed based on keywords that enable successful searches to help in the retrieval of information and impact on the patient experience, satisfaction, and outcomes. Information technology may in some aspects of health still be a newly acquired concept, but the short time its has been available to assist in health care, many medical professionals have greatly attributed to huge milestones and success rate being resulted.

Communication, quality service, and patient safety

Information technology has led to the adoption of the electronic health care record system that has enhanced the accessibility of patient records to the necessary and relevant medical professionals and caregivers. This has greatly impacted the communication between medical professionals as all relevant information regarding a patient can be obtained from electronic health care records. This improves the quality of service as medical practitioners can attend to and subsequently make recommendations regarding patient's well-being based on substantial information (Alotaibi & Federico, 2017).

There has been a reduced margin of error by at least 65%. The electronic health care records greatly assist in decision making. Medical practitioners and the records system have been indicated to each enable each other. The electronic health care records system's primary focus is gathering data, analyzes, and subsequently processes raw data into usable and implementable data to aid physicians in accurate decision making. In the health care sector, there is very little margin of error and which has over time been aimed at being further reduced to no margin of error as there are dire consequences, and human lives could be affected and lost (Alotaibi & Federico, 2017).

Patient monitors and critical systems that play a great role in patient's well-being all are a part of the electronic health care record system. All variables relevant to the patient play a significant role in ensuring health care professionals are empowered to provide quality service to their patients. Similarly, the inclusion of the nurse call system into the electronic health care system gives information to caregivers. these components could include but not limited to bed alarms and patient care application systems among other items. Many may still be a little skeptical on the values and influence of information technology in enhancing the patient experience and quality of service but regardless, there is progress adoption of the health care information technology (Alotaibi & Federico, 2017).

Technological tools

Some certain tools and procedures help in the extraction of information relevant to patient outcomes. This hence indicates that certain devices need to be worn to collect data. Patient monitoring systems include wearable devices to have access to medical records that are automatically fed into the electronic health care records systems. With the scientific and technological advancement in the world today, patients can be monitored remotely from the confines and comfort of their homes. This has been driven by the urge and need for convenience. In some cases, patients do not need to be physically present at hospitals to be monitored as they may contract infections (Georgiou et al., 2019).

The use of technology has been greatly borrowed from other industries and sectors and finely tuned to serve medical purposes. The success rates of technology inclusion in other sectors gave the health care system a leveraging point to make it work within its required fields. Convenience has greatly been achieved as well as positive patient outcomes without any major compromise that may significantly affect patient outcomes. Wearable devices remotely communicate with remote information systems in hospitals through alerts and requests when abnormal levels are noticed in patients and emergency units can be disbursed to the patient location for assisted professional help. This is a strategy that has greatly influenced community health without strenuous stretching of hospital resources (Georgiou et al., 2019).

Through application systems installed on mobile devices, patients can seek help from qualified medical professionals. Communication has been made seamlessly possible and information can be shared on interactive platforms and through virtual visits, medical assistance can be accorded to patients remotely. There are educational videos that sensitize patients on ways to keep themselves safe and from patient portals, information and statistics can be derived and obtained by simply touching a screen. Technologies such as Wi-Fi and a distributed antenna system are slowly gaining popularity and widely being used to accord the needed medical assistance to patients (Georgiou et al., 2019).

Technology as an enabler

The health fraternity has been able to leverage its position on the use of technology-based on previous successes in other industries. Information systems may be a new principle in health care, however, they have been successfully applied in other industries to positively influence data collection, processing of raw data, and subsequent analysis and representation into more appropriate and usable data. The margin of error in health care has significantly been reduced which has positively influenced positive outcomes in patients. Decision-making processes have become seamlessly easy as information systems have provided all necessary data to support decisions (Kruse, 2018).

Patient experiences have as well been positively impacted as with the help of devices, alarms, monitoring devices, and other tools have come in handy. Data essential to improving patient safety, experience, and outcomes have been availed. Similarly, with the help of wireless networks, patients can be remotely monitored. This reduces strain on hospital resources as the less critical patients are discharged and put under home care and only when needed, a medical practitioner can grant his or her services physically. Information systems have hence been a great enabler in real-time analysis and monitoring of patient vitals and overall well-being (Kruse, 2018).

Accessibility to medical records and information

With the newly incorporated electronic records system, most patients' information is not manually handled. Information is recorded and passed on a paperless platform. This change may have taken a little too long to get here but it could not have taken place at a better time. Physical records are quite cumbersome to handle and often get misplaced, tampered with, or can be accessed by third parties who have not been authorized. This greatly inconvenienced health care as the system was slow as time needed to be allocated in finding misplaced files and at times if not found, it would force medical practitioners to duplicate another file leading to numerous representation of data severally at times even increasing the chances of errors (Negash et al., 2018).

On average, an electronic health care records system could cost between seven thousand dollars and fifteen thousand dollars. For some health care facilities, this may be quite a hefty expenditure, however, its effects can be almost guaranteed that it could positively impact the hospital processes. Paper-based documentation facilitates various processes within and outside the hospital premises. Patients can be remotely managed and monitored as they are technological solutions present that act as enablers to health care systems. Collected data can hence be accurately analyzed reducing chances of errors and similarly, repetition of patient data is eradicated (Negash et al., 2018).

Alternative, the mere fact that medicine is a continuously evolving sector, electronic records provide statistics that could be harvested and put to better use such in research and drug testing procedures. Through the traditional recording of patient data, data collection and analysis would be a complicated process and stage in research. Time taken in recording of data has been significantly sliced which creates time for other patients to be administered to. Great masses can hence be served effortlessly as technological advancements in information management have greatly and positively impacted the health care system (Negash et al., 2018).

METHODOLOGY

To accurately have a clearer understanding of ways in which technology impacts the health care system, it is necessary to conduct a survey and research on the level of impact and how it has influenced changes within medicine. For the success of the study, interviews would be best suited for this study. Interviews will seek to ask the relevant medical practitioners that interact with both patients as well as with the system to attributes some of its benefits and drawbacks based on their experience.

Similarly, questionnaires could be drafted and given to select members of staff who have direct interaction with the electronic records system. The questionnaires will include simple questions with multi-choices after every question where one can tick the appropriate answer based on the question. Further research can as well be conducted using internet sources to increase one's knowledge of the various technologies, tools, and strategies available that have been used and those that are still in their development phase and could be incorporated into the health care system in the future.

DATA COLLECTION

The study will mainly be conducted on a one-on-one basis as well as through email where the targeted correspondents will be asked to fill questionnaires and then email them back for analysis of the filled-in data. To attribute the impact of technology in information management in the health care system, it would be important to collect the filled in questionnaires plus the information obtained from interviews for analysis. The collected data is its raw form hence will need to be processed, analyzed, and accurately articulated to give usable data. Questions for this study are simple and clear as they have been well structured to collect as much data using a few carefully drafted questions.

SAMPLING

Information management systems are a technological aspect that will impact the greater hospital staff hence there are numerous correspondents for the study. It would then be necessary to survey all departments within the hospital to establish its impact on improving health care. It is then necessary to approach all heads of the various departments within the health care facility. Their assistants might as well be approached to be correspondents to the study if the departmental heads are pre-disposed to take part in the study. With at least one correspondent in every department, there will be sufficient information to indicate ways in which technology influences health care systems.

RESEARCH DESIGN

Upon review of the information gathered, the results obtained will accurately be represented. A comparison will then be made on the influence of technology in health care in recent times against the traditional ways of information management. The pros and cons of each strategy will be weighed to determine the advantages, disadvantages, and a comparison based on costs and other aspects relevant to hospitals and patient variables. Impacts of technology in the health care system can then be articulated and determined if it is a worthy strategy in influencing patients' experiences and outcomes.

LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

It is quite inevitable that certain correspondents might attempt withholding of information that may be necessary for the study. This puts the reliability, accuracy, and integrity of the study at risk. Corresponding may likely be unavailable or unwilling to contribute to the filling of questionnaires and taking part in interviews. This creates a deficiency in information intended to be collected for analysis.

References