Topic 1 DQ 2
How do health care information systems enhance quality of care and coordination of care? Discuss at least two benefits and challenges of using information systems in health care.
Topic 1 DQ 2: Information Systems Enhancing Care Quality
Technology has revolutionized many aspects of care, including safety, coordination, and delivery methods. Regarding care quality, health care information systems allow clinicians to collect, store, analyze, and manage patient data. Increased access to critical information and timely analysis facilitate quick and accurate decision-making regarding diagnoses and treatment (Dixon et al., 2018). Accuracy in health care also minimizes errors hence optimizing patient safety. Technologies valuable in achieving these goals include medication alerts, reminders, and clinical decision support. Concerning care coordination, more organized data, easy retrieval, and exchange possibilities through electronic health records are the foundation of care coordination across health care settings (Dixon et al., 2018)). For health care professionals to coordinate and work as a team, health IT systems should be safe and highly interoperable. Barriers to use should be reduced significantly too.
The use of information systems in patient care is associated with many benefits and challenges. One of the main benefits is improving patient-provider communication by allowing patients to interact and share information with health care professionals (Feldman et al., 2018). The other major benefit is efficiency since they reduce delays by diminishing the need for paperwork. Importantly, health information systems improve care coordination hence improving the chances of a patient receiving patient-centered care. All these benefits are a foundation of high patient satisfaction.
Challenges of information systems vary in type and complexity. They include technical problems, usage problems, and maintenance and support challenges. According to Tummers et al. (2021), technical problems include security issues, network problems, and the lack of infrastructure to support health IT. Usage problems include uneducated users, problems related to meeting user needs, and poor system usability. A suitable example of maintenance and support challenge is poor system updates and high system costs.
References
Dixon, B. E., Embi, P. J., & Haggstrom, D. A. (2018). Information technologies that facilitate care coordination: provider and patient perspectives. Translational Behavioral Medicine, 8(3), 522-525. https://doi.org/10.1093/tbm/ibx086
Feldman, S. S., Buchalter, S., & Hayes, L. W. (2018). Health information technology in healthcare quality and patient safety: literature review. JMIR Medical Informatics, 6(2), e10264. https://medinform.jmir.org/2018/2/e10264/
Tummers, J., Tekinerdogan, B., Tobi, H., Catal, C., & Schalk, B. (2021). Obstacles and features of health information systems: a systematic literature review. Computers in Biology and Medicine, 137, 104785. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compbiomed.2021.104785
