Health Technology Assessment

Assignment 1: Technology Assessment

Health Information Systems – HSA 520

Abstract

In my opinion, Electronic Health Records (EHRs) is the most significant new technology for the health care industry because it helps to reduce healthcare cost, helps prevent duplicate testing and assures that those connected has the same medical records which also prevent over medication. Hospitals that use advanced (EHRs) report lower costs per patient admission than hospitals that do not use advanced EHRs. These cost savings will benefit many third-party payers, hospitals, and patients, and incentives such as those provided through the HITECH Act to promote EHR adoption and use will benefit hospitals.

Introduction

Electronic Health Records is one of the most significant new health care technologies of the 21st century thanks to the Affordable Care Act. This new innovative technology brings patients and their providers together with just a simple click of you’re the computer mouse. Although this new system challenges users with limited literacy skills or limited experience using the Internet, there are other ways health care administrators can communicate with the community such as, printed materials, media campaigns, community outreach, and interpersonal communication.

Significant new technology requirements for the health care industry

In my opinion, Electronic Health Records (EHRs) is the most significant new technology for the health care industry because it helps to reduce healthcare cost, helps prevent duplicate testing and assures that those connected has the same medical records which also prevent over medication. Hospitals that use advanced (EHRs) report lower costs per patient admission than hospitals that do not use advanced EHRs. These cost savings will benefit many third-party payers, hospitals, and patients, and incentives such as those provided through the HITECH Act to promote EHR adoption and use will benefit hospitals. Since many previous studies have shown that EHRs can improve the safety and quality of care in hospitals, the projected cost savings in this study provides additional motivation and builds the business case for hospitals to make the large investment in adopting and maintaining an EHR system. This study is a very large multistate study that is likely representative of national trends and builds upon previous work of cost savings associated with EHR use. The results provide support for the continued adoption and use of EHRs to improve healthcare through cost savings and quality improvements.

Technology, regulation, and implementation policies should add net value to the patient’s care and experience. Current EHR design and use is often visit-based and payment-centered and directs more work to the physician. Therefore, EHRs can paradoxically diminish value for the patient. The Primary Function of EHRs Is Clinical Care. Electronic health records should be designed and used as sense-making and communication tools (4). To be good stewards of information, health care professionals must concisely organize key elements, use structured or copied and pasted text judiciously, and pay close attention to the longitudinal portions of the record (for example, problem and medication lists and the care plan). The optimal person to input information will vary across settings and may not always, or even often, be the physician. Administrative and research activities, although valuable, must be subordinate to the clinical function. Information organized primarily for billing justification or other organizational purposes, including performance measurement and audit trails, can unintentionally undermine its fundamental clinical purpose (Sinsky, Beasley, Simmons, & Baron, 2014).

Analyze the basic technology underlying health care information systems

The most basic analysis of health care information systems is led by the importance of aligning Information Management/Information Technology (IM/IT) with organizational strategy (Gland, 2008) Health care is considered an applied science, therefore, if it is to be effective; information must be recorded, records must be conserved, be organized and they must be retrievable in several different ways.   To provide health care without the recording and analysis of the results is only of passing use and of no help to the next or future generations. To align IT/IM with organizational strategy is to determine the objectives of management and set the goals of the technology system to go in that direction.
In a health care organization, often the task of organizing the technology of the agency falls under the Chief Information Officer (CIO). This individual is tasked with developing a full understanding of “clinical information systems, regulatory and reporting requirements and the use of information in strategic planning and decision support. (Gland, 2008, p. 28) The CIO must attend the meetings and have close relationships with the clinicians, the accountants, the staff and most importantly the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the health care organization. The CIO must understand the management of the organization as well or better than any employee because he is responsible for the design, implementation and sustainability of the IM/IT system. “Concepts and principles are accompanied by demands for more data on healthcare activities and for information systems to accumulate and process data.” According to Vikkelso, (2007) both clinicians and end users always want more and faster information. This is clearly the most pressing need of modern health care technology because it will make available all patient records to hospitals and health care providers as a whole. Having access to these Electronic Health Records will cut health care cost by preventing duplicate testing, duplicate medication prescriptions, having access to previous tests so other providers will have a medical history.

Innovation / Modification improving the overall level of health care in your own community

Innovations in the delivery of health care can result in more-convenient, more-effective, and less-expensive treatments for today’s time-stressed and increasingly empowered health care consumers. For example, a health plan can involve consumers in the service delivery process by offering low-cost, high-deductible insurance, which can give members greater control over their personal health care spending. Or a health plan (or service provider) can focus on becoming more user-friendly. Patients, after all, are like other consumers: They want not only a good product—quality care at a good price—but also ease of use. People in the United States have to wait an average of three weeks for an appointment and, when they show up, 30 minutes to see a doctor, according to a 2003 study by the American Medical Association. More seriously, they often must travel from one facility to another for treatment, especially in the case of chronic disease

New drugs, diagnostic methods, drug delivery systems, and medical devices offer the hope of better treatment and of care that is less costly, disruptive, and painful. For example, implanted sensors can help patients monitor their diseases more effectively. And IT innovations that connect the many islands of information in the health care system can both vastly improve quality and lower costs by, for example, keeping a patient’s various providers informed and thereby reducing errors of omission or commission.

Key actions senior health care leadership could take in the community to push the boundaries of Information Technology Management

The increase in online health information and services challenges users with limited literacy skills or limited experience using the Internet. For many of these users, the Internet is stressful and overwhelming—even inaccessible. Much of this stress can be reduced through the application of evidence-based best practices in user-centered design. In addition, despite increased access to technology, other forms of communication are essential to ensuring that everyone, including non-Web users, is able to obtain, process, and understand health information to make good health decisions. These include printed materials, media campaigns, community outreach, and interpersonal communication.

During the coming decade, the speed, scope, and scale of adoption of health IT will only increase. Social media and emerging technologies promise to blur the line between expert and peer health information. Monitoring and assessing the impact of these new media, including mobile health, on public health will be challenging. Equally challenging will be helping health professionals and the public adapt to the changes in health care quality and efficiency due to the creative use of health communication and health IT. Continual feedback, productive interactions, and access to evidence on the effectiveness of treatments and interventions will likely transform the traditional patient-provider relationship. It will also change the way people receive, process, and evaluate health information. Capturing the scope and impact of these changes—and the role of health communication and health IT in facilitating them—will require multidisciplinary models and data systems. Such systems will be critical to expanding the collection of data to better understand the effects of health communication and health IT on population health outcomes, health care quality, and health disparities.

References

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