HEALTHCARE

Information Management in Healthcare



Table of Contents

Introduction1

Usage of information technology2

Electronic health record (EHR)2

Clinical decision support system or CDSS3

Radio frequency identification (RFID)3

Automated dispensing machines (ADMs)4

Picture archiving and communications system (PACS)4

Incident reporting and recording systems4

Patient confidentiality6

Barriers to adoption7

Conclusion8

References9

Information Management in Healthcare

Introduction

The National Health Services looks at the overall healthcare system in the UK which comes under The UK Department of Health. For the support to the National Healthcare Services, the CFH or NHS Connecting for Health was formulated. The purpose of this support was to enable NHS in the provision of quality healthcare services to the people in UK which is better in terms of safety and sharing of patient information so that patients are able to get whatever information they want and whenever they want it. For this reason, the NHS came up with the NPfIT or National Programme for Information Technology. This was launched back in the year 2002. The underlying aim of the programme is to develop e-records of patients which may be shared across England in all of the NHS Trusts.

The scope of the programme is very large. It means a change in the way the NHS staff had been working so far. It will serve as a link between community services that are given to hospitals and the GPs. The biggest benefit of deploying information technology in the healthcare system will be that information will be readily and completely available. Hence, the healthcare service delivery system will be more efficient.

There are three components of this programme. These are listed hereunder.

Patient Administration System or PAS

Picture Archiving and Communications Systems or PACS, and

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The funding for the program covers all the cost of the technology. However, any cost associated with bringing any change in the work processes of the organization or there is a cost associated with implementing the desired information technology, that is not paid by the central authority. For this program, the government has given $17 billion. Other than the federal government, the local authorities have contributed towards the additional healthcare costs.

Usage of information technology

There are several ways the information technology can be used for the improvement in the healthcare delivery system in the UK. These are discussed hereunder.

Electronic health record (EHR)

This is the perfect software for information handling on patients. With the EHR, it is convenient for the healthcare service provider to find data on a particular patient. The service provided is not only efficient but is much better in that the service provider has better access to information. The healthcare provider has the complete history of the data. There can be an instance where the patient himself does not know the link between two illnesses. However, if the doctor sees it in the record, he would be able to know the precise cause of the disease and will be able to prescribe better medicine or treatment.

He data contained in the EHR include the medical hi9story of the patient, the treatments that have been provided to date, the image of the patient, ...