Introduction
Access to Health Information Technology (HIT) is vital when it comes to receiving and providing health care services in all medical facilities in the world. The United States spent $2.5 trillion in developing the country’s Medicare and medical services. The presence of an HIT is essential in keeping the records of millions of patients with their ailments and other information regarding their health progress. Human effort isn’t enough to manage all information (Ciampa and Revels, 2012). According to Essien and Williams (2009), establishing health services in rural communities has been a big problem for most governments in several nations. Some people in small or rural communities either resort to home remedies because hospital facilities are located far from their location, or the clinics in each area lack the needed medicines and supplies. Health analysts from Rand Corporation (2005) are certain that with the help of HIT, the quality of healthcare services will improve and the costs to be paid by patients will decline. This is the work of the organized set of information disseminated to healthcare professionals with the help of technologies It would be ideal for most hospitals and clinics to utilize HIT for better services.
One specific HIT is the Electronic Medical Record. This technology assists hospitals in keeping an organized set of records of all patients from the past to the present, including their background information, history of illness, and prescribed medicines (Medical Records, n.d.).
There are many definitions for rural communities, but for this study, the researcher will focus on rural communities, which population are either facing poverty or close to poverty and who do not have enough money to seek modern health care services. The issue of establishing better healthcare services and facilities in rural areas has been present for many years now, not only in terms of the technology needed but also in terms of other important factors such as fast internet connection, HIT technicians, and health experts to fully resolve problems (AHRQ, 2010).
The Assessment
This research will shed some light on the immediate needs of installing HIT in small and rural communities for better access to health care services regardless of the community’s inancial status. The evaluation will focus on the possible benefits of an HIT in small and rural communities. This study will also tackle the possible barriers and requirements before developing and establishing healthcare facilities and technologies.
Small and rural communities around the world are already suffering from the lack of access to health care services and facilities. In this regard, this study will involve an observation and evaluation of the current situation in small and rural communities. The researcher needs to immerse themselves in a certain small or rural community to be aware of the situation and understand the needs for HIT. This can be considered a phenomenon since this problem has been prevalent for several years now and can be resolved by human effort. The researcher needs to determine the possible contributions of an HIT to small and rural communities.
Formulating the Research Question
Developing a Hypothesis
Significance of the Research
This research will determine the possible outcome of an HIT in rural communities, and most of the results indicate that it is beneficial. This research will motivate government officials and organizations to support the establishment of HIT and better health care facilities in rural communities without requiring much in return. This research is to promote awareness in everyone regarding the weak health care conditions in so many nations and rural communities that are struggling economically. This research will also benefit health practitioners and aspiring medical students to contribute to this line of research to enhance and expand human knowledge regarding health care services.
Research Method
With a qualitative approach, this study can be completed with Observational research methods or Descriptive Qualitative. This type of method is flexible and can easily adapt to several issues in-between the research. Some questions may arise suddenly and need to be addressed for the sake of the research, but the answers needed can be generated through keen observation with the right people or participants. The need for numbers and figures for this research is not actually necessary, although it would help expand the study. However, this study can be considered an opportunity to solve a phenomenon, specifically the lack of health care services in rural communities. The proponents may conduct interviews and surveys with the right participants such as the community members, the medical experts, and the HIT experts.
What is needed to be measured?
In this research, it is important to measure the percentage of health care services being provided to the people of rural communities, that is, the number of people receiving health care services versus those who don’t. The capacity that a hospital or clinic can provide for health care services also needs to be measured for the sole reason of determining the level of importance of establishing an HIT. This study should also consider the needed amount of money and resources to establish HITs and what the perfect way to collect the money is. Observation is important in this research, so measurement is defined as the factors or variables needed to be evaluated, estimated, and observed (Gavin, n.d.).
The measurement methods or tools for this research can be employed by conducting interviews that use a self-structured open-ended questionnaire. This way, the researcher may include all the important questions that would enable them to obtain the results needed for the study. An open-ended question is also extensive because it does not only gather obvious information but also the opinions of the participants, which will further contribute to the research. The advantage of a self-structured open-ended questionnaire is that the researcher is free to ask follow-up questions if the interviewee is starting to impart more information. In this process, the answers can be measured using the ordinal scale. This can be used to determine the significance or importance of the answers. The researchers should choose the participants carefully in terms of their experiences and knowledge. The researchers also have the freedom to determine how many interviews they need to conduct to establish credibility with their information. The researcher will then identify the similarities among all the interviews.
The researcher should brief the interviewee before the interview starts to ensure honesty and accuracy. The information gathered from the interviews can be supported by published materials from scholars and organizations that are about or related to the topic. The data to be gathered should be measured, or in this case categorized, by combining all similar answers from the interviewees. Most of the answers would probably agree with the urgent need of installing HIT in small and rural communities. The information would then be categorized into one conclusion. The researcher should also determine the accuracy and credibility of the data gathered in order to support the study.
Analysis of Data
All of the data to be gathered should be categorized accordingly. It would then be compared to the findings in published materials about the topic. The results will be analyzed and interpreted, and it will be determined whether the HIT implementation led to improvements in healthcare services delivery within the community.
This research, to start with, is for the sake of enhancing health-care services in rural communities. Most of the content should be leading to a conclusion that suggests the installation of HIT. Other researchers have conducted studies about the evaluation of HIT in rural communities. In this regard, the proponents of this study may analyze the findings of those studies. The findings of those studies maybe compared to the data gather by the researcher of this study to come up with the answer to the research question.
Drawing Conclusions
Several researches came up with different conclusions. Adoption and use of HIT in rural communities and urban communities are almost the same in terms of efficiency. Even rural communities seem to benefit just as much as urban communities with the help of HIT regardless of the stature and condition of the society (Singh et al., 2011). Effken and Abbott (2009) recommend the increase in nurse attendants in rural communities, with the help of HIT, in order to provide more effective health care services. Most of the recommendations and conclusions of previous studies that are similar to those of this study are motivating the development of every aspect of health care services for rural communities. The conclusions of this study should be direct and should be based on the data gathered during the research
References
AHRQ. (2010). Health information technology and health information exchange implementation in rural and underserved areas: Findings from the AHRQ health it portfolio. Retrieved from https://healthit.ahrq.gov/sites/default/files/docs/page/HIT%20Health%20Info%20rural_0.pdf
Ciampa, M., & Revels, M. (2012). Introduction to healthcare information technology. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
Effken, J., & Abbott, P. (2009). Health it-enabled care for underserved rural populations: The role of nursing. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2705245\
Essien, E., & Williams, E. (2009). E-health services in rural communities of developing countries. Retrieved from http://www.grin.com/en/e-book/158436/e-health-services-in-rural-communities-of-developing-countries
Gavin, T. (n.d.). Research forum –metodology-meaurements, part 1: Principles and theory. Retrieved from http://www.oandp.org/jpo/library/1996_02_045.asp
Medical Records. (n.d.). What are the benefits of electronic medical records? Retrieved from http://www.medicalrecords.com/physicians/what-are-the-benefits-of-working-with-emr
Rand Corporation. (n.d). Health information technology: Can HIT lower costs and improve quality? Retrieved from http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9136/index1.html
Singh, R., Lichter, M., Danzo, A., Taylor, J., & Rosenthal, T. (2011). The adoption and use of health information technology in rural areas: results of a national survey. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1748-0361.2011.00370.x/abstract
