Foundational Information in Health Informatics Essay

The project instruction wants the student to pick 1 issue in the health care field and discuss how informatics will help that one issue.

1. How does the issue impact healthcare informatics?

2. Will this issue have a long-term effect?

3. Will this effect be positive or negative? Why?

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HEALTH INFORMATICS 2

Health Informatics

University of Saint Augustine for Health Sciences IPE7400B900: Healthcare Informatics and Technology Management

February 15, 2019

Health informatics

Health informatics refers to the medical field that focuses on data processing, therapeutic activities communication, research, and study. There have been advancements in the recent past that have contributed a great deal to health informatics. Among the improvements is the technological growth in the medical field (Nelson & Staggers, 2018).

The health informatics field emerged as a result of computer technology advancements especially when it involved managing huge amounts of data. It led to innovation of the first electronic medical record soon after the new-fangled nomenclature for specified areas of study of biological information. With further advancements, health informatics increased the global standards with a variety of medical formats to the point that clinical information systems professionals were challenged in attaining interoperability between the formats (Nelson.et.al, 2018).

According to the recent health technological trends, there is integration between client health informatics and information technology as shares of the contemporary thought of community well-being and policies related to public healthcare. Patients are also adapting and using current systems, aimed at healthcare experts, at home. Electronic medical records of the patients are also accessible to the patients, which is useful in empowering the patients. Medical experts are also able to intervene whenever patients need help in making informed decisions, by the use of software designed for computer-based decision aids.

Due to the positive impacts that information technological advancements have had on health informatics, there is subsequent development of many initiatives with the intention of improving the value of healthiness info. The efforts focus on patient education, encouragement of self-classification, and self-control of healthcare workers. It helps in the evaluation and rating of data and therefore enhances enforcement of compliance with the criterion. Foundational Information in Health Informatics Essay

Advancements within health informatics field have enabled reduction of treatment costs. Through the use of computers, clients can make informed choices regarding their health and therefore do not have to see a healthcare expert. It gets attributed to increased access to interactive data that can easily be made available to clients through the use of internet and other related technologies, which coincides with the desire of many clients to be responsible for their healthiness. The changes could also get attributed to the emphasis on the health of the population and even preventive measures of various ailments (myPHR, 2016).

Advancement in information technology has enabled easy access to health records to clients. The primary purpose of health informatics is to empower clients by making their health records more accessible to them, comprising of their medical service activities such as diagnosis, results, individual risk factors as well as prescribed drugs. Use of information technology has expanded the means through which clients can access their health records. It could be over the internet, implementation of smart cards, or even implementation of both. The use of smartcards goes further to protect patient’s data security by ensuring private access to patients’ health information (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, 2016).

Also, electronic record keeping has played a significant role in tailoring health information to patients. Through the use of the internet, it is possible for any patient to link their health data with knowledge attained from other databases and websites such as Medline. With the advancements that have come up, it is possible for any patient to access information regarding their medical trends through their phones and computers. The tailored information is essential even during instigation of changes as far as health mannerisms, and knowledge increment is concerned.

Computer-based applications have also helped the clinicians in integrating their clients’ preferences with scientific evidence, their history as well as local constraints. The applications are also helpful to clients while making decisions regarding treatment or screening based on their first choice for diverse results. The decision aids are desirable even more in a situation when the optimum administration policy hangs on the strong suit of the client’s preferences for the diverse healthcare results that could get obtained from the choice.

The improvement in information technology assists a great deal in controlling the value of healthcare info through the internet. There are four mainstays on which quality control lies on the web: encouragement of self-control of healthcare experts, patients’ training, evaluation of health data by third parties, and enforcement of sanctions when there is the dissemination of fraud. There are significant advancements in all the pillars that have come up in the recent past. Currently, there is an undergoing project that aims at establishing an institution that permits people, societies, associations, and organizations to measure the value of published healthcare data that is available online through the use of standardized vocabulary. The project is known as medCERTAIN. It also aims at creating various stages of authorization for healthcare experts who broadcast online health data via the internet. The steps will vary from the simplest of ethical standards to that of the best rules (AHIMAonDEMAND, 2010).

Although the technological advancements have a significant impact on the reduction of the knowledge difference between medical experts and patients, it has also created a vast difference between those who can easily access the internet and computer and those who cannot (HealthIT, 2016). For this reason, I believe that technological advancements will have a long-term effect on society. Those who can easily access online data will be at an advantage. However, those who cannot access it will be left uninformed and somehow ignored in the society.

One issue that could be helped by informatics is the use of the advancements to discover new types of medicines that could help in curbing the main killer diseases such as HIV/AIDS and cancer. Different machinery should get invented to formulate a cure to such diseases.

I believe that technological advancements have more positive impacts as far as health informatics are concerned that the adverse effects, even though they could bring about the knowledge gap between the haves and the have-nots. More improvements will, therefore, be recommendable. Foundational Information in Health Informatics Essay

References

AHIMAonDEMAND (2010). What a PHR can do for you [Video file]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQJVceBNXFY 

Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society. (2015).  mHealth app essentials: Patient engagement, considerations, and implementation. Retrieved from:http://www.himss.org/mhealth-app-essentials-patient-engagement-considerations-and-implementation

myPHR https://www.myphr.com/

HealthIT. (n.d.). The guide to getting & using your health records. Retrieved from https://www.healthit.gov/how-to-get-your-health-record/

Nelson, R., & Staggers, N. (2018). Health informatics (Second edition ed.). St. Louis, Missouri: Elsevier.

Foundational Information in Health Informatics Essay