Healthcare technology
Discussion 1
The application of information technology is changing health delivery in many ways. One fundamental component of health information technology applied today is electronic health records or electronic medical records. EHRs are electronic records of patient data such as personal addresses, personal contacts, identification data, medical history, test results, treatment plans, and even outcomes (Kruse et al., 2018). The application of EHR has helped improve the health of populations in many ways, including enhancing patient engagement, coordinating patient care, and exchanging health information.
The electronic health records softwares such as patient portals are critical in enhancing patient outreach and engagement in hospitals. Patient portal service provided by the HER systems allows physicians to update the system with data on the patient and treatment process, which at the same time allow that patient to access such data. These portals allow patients to receive and send emails concerning them from a physician, enabling them to have an input in the treatment plan and raise concerns. Besides, EHRs are critical in managing patient care by streamlining access to patient’s data even in the absence of the previous practitioner. Even when a patient changes hospitals, the doctors can still access medical history, which is critical in upcoming medical procedures. The doctor can easily access the tests the patient has gone through, medications used, allergies, and many more, which is vital in avoiding medical errors and duplicating tests. Better coordination is essential in ensuring that the diagnoses are accurate, the management of chronic conditions is improved, and the overall patient care is standard. The other way EHR systems can support population health is by facilitating the exchange of medical information. EHR systems coexist with other systems in a hospital setting, including laboratory systems, pharmacy systems, administration systems, and others that need to work in unison. EHR systems allow data to flow within these systems easily hence improving inter-operability (Kruse et al., 2018). Besides, the systems also allow the same patient data to be transferred to other hospitals and ministries of health which, when compiled with other patient data, can be essential in medical research.
These EHR systems are also critical in assisting patients and payors in managing costs. First and foremost, most EHR systems, such as fun spots, are linked to the company’s financial system. Through this system invoicing, billing, cash collection, requisition, and budgeting can be done quickly and automatically. This aspect ensures that there is little chance for mistakes to be made, saves on paperwork costs, and allows easy auditing. The same system also allows patients to audit medical costs and avoid unscrupulous issues like overpricing and fraud.
Healthcare IT such as computerized prescribing, disease registries and order entries, telehealth, and EHRs have brought positive improvements to organizational and clinical outcomes in many patient populations. First and foremost, clinical outcomes such as improving patient care and coordination have improved. Today systems such as EHR have enabled disease diagnosis to be accurate and reduce medical errors from wrong prescriptions, which improve patient care. Besides, there has been improved patient engagement because the patient and doctor can now share data, which is critical in improving patient care and increasing patient safety (Karahoca et al., 2018). Health care IT also improves organizational goals, such as reducing expenses, especially those associated with paperwork and hiring personnel to coordinate the paperwork. Besides, efficiency and productivity are improved, with many patients recovering and more clients being referred to the hospitals. Increased patient care and reduced medical errors boost the organization’s brand.
Discussion 2
One of the most significant medical outcomes for many administrators and governments is the ease of accessing medical services. Today many technologies are being adopted in healthcare facilities and healthcare organizations to increase access to healthcare facilities. One of the technologies put in place to achieve this outcome is mHealth. Mhealth is the practice of public health and medicine through mobile devices like phones, tablets, wireless infrastructure, and PDAs. It comprises all multimedia and telecommunications applications used in delivery healthcare and information (Olla and Shimskey, 2015). Mhealth can be applied in disease awareness and education, diagnosis support, outbreak tracking, data collection, remote monitoring, telemedicine, and disease management.
Mhealth helps patients access medical services, even in remote areas where hospitals and doctors aren’t available. For instance, patients can make calls or receive texts related to their treatment, health education, and therapeutically changes, which can be critical in improving their health, especially in emergencies. Besides, healthcare providers can also interact with patients, provide clinical guidelines, and receive diagnostic support, which would initially be possible through hospitals (Olla and Shimskey, 2015). Some devices such as electronic watches can take vital parameters such as body temperatures, pulse, heart rate, and blood pressure and send them to medical practitioners who will then diagnose a patient’s condition without necessarily being with the patient. This aspect is quite crucial, especially in places where doctors and hospitals are not in the vicinity.
Discussion 3
Data is critical in making informed decisions on anything. One of the datasets found in AHRQ is the Kids’ Inpatient Database (KID), a collection of software tools and databases developed for use by various organizations. This inpatient data is the largest pediatric database in the US. It has about 3 million kids discharge every year and roughly 7 million hospitalizations. It has been produced every three years since 1997, with the latest production in 2016, which is made up of ICD-10-CM/PCS information.
The 2016 KID database consists of information on patients below 21 years from both every state in the US on rare and common medical conditions such as congenital anomalies and rare therapies like cardiac surgery. This database contains data from 4200 hospitals across the country except for rehabilitation hospitals. From the data, we can see that newborns with little variance got sampled at a 10% rate and 80% for other kids’ discharges. The database also contained information like diagnosis and procedures reported in the ICD-10-CM/PCS for children with private insurance or Medicaid a well as the uninsured.
The element of this data set like procedures and diagnosis, discharge status, stay length, severity, hospital characteristics, hospital characteristic, and other patient demographics like race, age, and sex. This type of data can help organizational administrators to make decisions on the preparations that need to be put in place. For instance, from the data, administrators can learn some of the common conditions patients get diagnosed with and can thereby plan on how they can combat such conditions (Kruse et al., 2018). As a healthcare administrator, access to this data can help me understand the common health conditions, how they were tackled, frequency of readmission from which one can prepare in advance to deal with them. This way, he or he can avoid unnecessary surprises and shortcomings that other healthcare administrators went through.