Nowadays not a community is able to manage their businesses without having a well-developed computerized system of supporting it. Studies in the field of medicine are extremely important especially if they are based on ways of adoption and application of IT innovations in various healthcare services management and deliveries. The system of providing studies is the medical informatics, where people use information technology in order to achieve some goals in the healthcare industry. This paper is to analyze medical informatics` impact on the quality of care along with listing some potential issues of its implementation into the wide use. The goals of medical informatics in an electronic health record`s (EHR) implementation should be further discussed.
Considering medical informatics as the intersection of technology and healthcare, which is an inseparable part of the modern development of care industry, it has a lot of responsibilities, which are for maintaining of finding new ways for medical facilities and practices to keep EHR along with improvement of communication between facilities and authorities, who provide care for the patients to achieve the best potential outcomes after some treatment (The Science of Informatics). Medical informatics is also involved in analyses and management of research data in order to gain information for further development of the healthcare industry.
Biomedical researches have to be held according to all the innovative approaches. The collection of knowledge and information management should be performed using technologies for proper evaluation of data collected. This way, the quality of care will essentially improve. If coordinating medicine and innovations in technologies, the benefits of proper implementation of new technologies will bring great benefits. Moreover, being dependent on personalized electronic health records, it is important to gain complex data about patients` health states with the help of technologies.
Health information systems (HIS) may be helpful in reducing costs of providing some medical tests for some times, as the accuracy of analyses rises along with reputation of technologies implemented to the studies (Balgrosky, 2015). In addition to it, EHR makes managing patients` records safer because of its automatically done summarization of their treatment experience and past situations of healthcare.
There are some real life experiences of EHR being successfully implemented. Health IT were spread in Mesa County, where innovative technologies helped the employees receive a lot of information concerning clinical data from both hospitals and laboratories and allowed the collaboration of all the medical facilities (Reicks). The funding given to Quality Health Network was implemented to improve the delivery of healthcare by ordering some HIS tools and bringing practicing methods into the wide use.
Another case took place in one family, where children were able to watch their parents` health state according to clinical data. They enjoyed the improved system of delivering information – electronic prescriptions and more efficient notes (EHR: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly—Real Life Stories, 2016). The risk of being confused with handwriting or wrong medicine decreased whereas people were extremely satisfied with the ability to watch the patient`s condition even though they were located far away.
Nevertheless, some people suffer from complexity of medicine informatics. The process of learning the proper ways to deal with EHR takes much time, but gives great results – well-trained staff and a lot of knowledge will assure healthcare employees with job satisfaction along with the improvement of the working processes. This way, it is obvious that the implementation of EHR has both benefits and deficiencies, but being useful tools in watching patient`s health state assures people with high level of trust towards HIS and EHR.
Medical informatics provides various facilities with almost no errors and trials due to the right medication prescribed. It also helps in improving patients` ability to self-manage their illnesses following directions recorded. The programs of organized bases for resources, health services, care and referrals help patients to search for some healthcare information during in-home use. They noticeably improve the efficiency of HIS and medical informatics all together.
Problems of implementation
Nevertheless, there are some potential problems with quality of care and the implementation of information systems to wide use. The issues of managing databases and keeping them updated is complicated as well as solving structuring problems due to different medical concepts. Moreover, medical informatics professionals have to find the best kinds of management because of required computerization. The algorithms of educational processes and clinical functions have to be written and implemented into use in order to provide all the healthcare facilities` employees with necessary knowledge. The process of upgrading chemical industry is intricate, but if applied correctly, it will facilitate and optimize the working process of the healthcare industry (Board, 1992).
Solutions to problems
Potential solutions to those challenges may be the improvement of the current level of knowledge and technical capabilities of different facilities and organizations. This way, both quality and delivery will prosper at the time, when costs are significantly decreased. Computer-based patients` records should serve as resources for further studies. Medical reports should be of automatic coding in order to gain the whole patient`s experience and watch the health state permanently.
Goals of medical informatics in an HER implementation
Goals of medical informatics in an EHR implementation are different. One of them is the desire to simplify the working processes of healthcare facilities along with pruning requirements for qualified treatment. With the help of modern technologies, the protocols for treatment will be the effective tools in order to solve some medical issues. EHR implementation should bring the balance to ease of use, functionality and cost. In case of proper implementation of EHR, one should gain a lot of benefits due to such an easy and convenient method to cut costs and improve the healthcare industry by upgrading it to one complicated database of resources, references, illnesses and ways of treatment.
This way, the medical informatics has a prosperous future because of its expediency. Nowadays people use more and more technologies for improving their lives and simplifying various processes. Considering it, the sphere of healthcare should be contemporary, too. The implementation of HIS will significantly reduce costs spent for providing some medical tests, as the accuracy of computerized analyses rises as well as the reputation of technologies implemented to various medical studies. Successful electronic health record project will certainly simplify the processes of providing care to patients with different issues.
References
Balgrosky, J.A. (2015). Essentials of Health Information Systems and Technology. Jones and Bartlett Learning. Print.
Board, J.A. (1992). Grand challenges in biomedical computing. Journal of Critical Reviews in Biomedical Engineering., 20 (1,2).
EHR: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly—Real Life Stories. (2016). EHR & EMR Insights. Retrieved from http://ehrinsights.srssoft.com/2011/07/ehr-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-real-life-stories/
Reicks, G.C. n.d. Practice Transformation, Health Information Technology, Payment Reform: Is There Optimism for Primary Care? HealthIT. gov.. Retrieved from https://www.healthit.gov/providers-professionals/primary-care/practice-transformation-health-information-technology-payment-r
The Science of Informatics. n.d. American Medical Informatics Association. Retrieved from https://www.amia.org/about-amia/science-informatics
