Collaborative Learning Community: Information Systems Integration Project - Part Two (Group Presentation)

INFORMATION SYSTEM INTEGRATION

Jennifer Coble

Systems Integration Project

HCA-360

February 18th 2018

Information systems integration

The interview was conducted on one of the private clinics- Mayo Clinic in the U.S. It is a health care that offers almost all the services that can be offered by a public national hospital and its facilities are highly technological. The IT professionals who were interviewed are charged with the responsibility of ensuring that technology is well incorporated in the health care, they train and offer education on the technology use in the health care and above all, they use technology in everything they do other than offering medicine and injecting patients.

Health Management Information Systems is a tool that is used to offer patient satisfaction in health care systems. It is the incorporation of technology into the tasks and activities in the health care such that the services offered to the patients are effective, efficient, up- to- date and experienced. HMIS also makes services faster to the health care professionals enabling them so many customers than when traditional methods are used (Goel, 2014). It is also good to note that with HMIS, the tasks and activities in the health care setting are made easy and accurate with very few errors if any.

Importance of Health Management Information Systems

There are many reasons why HMIS is a very important tool;

In the first place, it makes work easier. By the use of computers in recording information, nurses are able to handle so many cases in the health care since they work faster with very few errors. This allows for offering services to a large number of patients hence offering higher profits to the health care system. The files that are created are saved in the computer system and there is no way the files are going to get lost. For as long as the information will be needed, it will just be retrieved from the computer. This will solve the problem of patient records getting lost when they are most needed such as during court cases.

In addition, the use of technology has made management easier and non-tiring. Managers do not have to go to every room asking if the nurses and other staff members have arrived (Tan J. K., 2014). At the time when any staff member arrives, they have to mark in the computer using their numbers and the manager knows who has arrived and who has not; who has left and who is in. This will help them to easily distribute tasks and offer guidelines. It will also save the managers’ time that could be spent on other health care tasks.

With technology, it is easier to know the problems of the patients. The use of machines in diagnoses of patient problems has enabled health care systems to know so many illnesses that were not known at the time when traditional healing methods were used. This invention has called for the healthcare system to conduct research and come up with the best medicine that can be used to heal these diseases. In fact, HMIS has enabled health care system to offer the right medicine to every given illness.

In addition, with technology, the health care practitioners are able to track the patients who should get their medication at their homes, offers medication to them and follows their health progress. In a situation that the patient is far, he or she can get help through online instruction given and the sort of medication they can get as well as the places where they can avail these medicines.

Within an HMIS system, the cost of medicine is relatively higher than what was charged in traditional methods. This is because the types of services that are offered are very sophisticated. The disease has to be screened more than once to get to the root of the problem and the medicine given should closely match with the illness to offer recovery faster. There is no taking chance like in traditional methods. This is why the cost of relatively higher.

In terms of time, the services are offered within a very short time period. The health care can serve four to five times the number of patients who were served using traditional methods. The health care system also ensures that all the patients served are given satisfaction. The services are quality and will not be compared to those offered in traditional system. In addition, some diseases that did not have a cure in the past have been given remedies (Tan & Payton, 2015). For instance, cancer is no longer a big problem, heart problems and high Blood Pressure among other illnesses that were considered a threat to people in the past. It is also good to note that there are very few errors that are related with the use of HMIS in health care system. This relates to the starting point of the services offered such as recording of patient records, screening of the patient illnesses among other tasks. This ensures that the patients have trust and confidence in the health care system. Patient information has a higher privacy and confidentiality with technology that it was at the time when traditional methods were used. This is because any person who wants to avail patient records will have to go through the nurse who recorded to have passwords that can give access to the file and also information on where the file is stored. This is not possible unless the patient gives a go- ahead; hence higher confidence involved with HMIS.

Interview questions

1. What is an HMIS in health care systems?

2. Who uses the HMIS tool and what are the benefits of using it?

3. What is the benefit of HMIS to the:

a. Patient

b. Health care practitioner

c. Health care center or hospital?

4. What is the future of HMIS; are there grounds of improving it or even making it better?

5. Are there any setbacks of using HMIS in a healthcare system? If yes, what are they and how do they affect the health care system?

6. How can these setbacks be reduced in order to make the HMIS tool more practical and beneficial?

References

Goel, S. D. (2014). Jones & Bartlett Learning, 20. Elsevier Health Sciences, 2014.

Tan, J. K. (2014). Health Management Information Systems: Methods and Practical Applications. Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2014.

Tan, J., & Payton, F. (2015). Adaptive Health Management Information Systems: Concepts, Cases, & Practical Applications. Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2015.