Health Information Technology (HIT)

Health Information Technology

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Health Information Technology

Health Information Technology (HIT) is considered widely as a tool that can be used in improving the quality of care, Improvement in care outcomes for both family and patient and family experience while reducing care disparities. The ability of HIT to augment information and communication sharing makes it a significant instrument for addressing quality and safety threats in times of care transitions. Consequently it has received substantial acknowledgement by numerous stakeholders in the US health sector including leading investors in the sector such as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) multi-billion dollar philanthropy dedicated to improving health and health care for all Americans (Yu, 2009).

The 2009 American reinvestment and recovery reinvestment Act (ARRA) acknowledged HIT’s significance through allocating $18 billion to enhance the development of electronic medical records in physician offices and hospitals. Consequently, researchers, health systems, computing companies and professional organizations have began investing their energy, financial resources and time in an effort to determine an electronic system that will add convenience, improve quality and increase efficiency (Tucker,2011).

The National Coalition of Care transition believes that for there to be a tangible effect in care transition, the technology should deal with a number of important steps. Its constituents include: strong care coordination, standardized processes, established accountability, good communication and necessary performance measures. If these components are not addressed HIT’s impact and general transition will not be realized (Sharon, 2012).

There are various bottle necks in the adoption of health information technology (HIT) as well as its capacity to augment health care transition and barriers to its usefulness, implementation and use (Moskop, 2009). Even though various stakeholders in the US health care system have made strides in examining, researching and assessing distinct strategies in the improvement of fragmented health care a broad adoption of a consistent paradigm to augment it is still lacking. There is a critical push to adopt technology solutions to help in the improvement of communication in the entire US health care sector. The availability of health information technology that communicates further than the boundaries of a health system or an institution is fundamental to the improvement of future health care transition (McCullough, 2010).

Limitations of the US Health care system

Family care givers and their patients tend to encounter numerous challenges every time they come into contact with the health care system. Recent surveys by the National Partnership for families and women found two unfailing pain points whenever they interact with the US health care sector: Lack of coordination and lack of communication. 75% of those that were surveyed indicated that they wished that they had doctors who would share information not only with them but also with each other (Longhurst, 2010).

Families and their patients comprehend that the consequences of this coordination and communication void include: misdiagnosis, medical errors, treatment duplication and testing and an overly negative and frustrating care experience. Evidence indicates that one out of six adults that have challenging chronic health conditions are readmitted within a month of their discharge from the hospital. This substantiates the fact that in order to improve outcomes there is a need to improve the effectiveness and safety of care transitions. Improvements in care are needed for all transitions for instance from nursing homes to hospitals (Koppel, 2005).

Improving outcomes through ensuring Effective Health care transition

One of the fundamental advantages of the use of technology in health care delivery is the capacity to guarantee that the right information is availed in all the health care process stages. Particularly during transition, all health care team members including family care givers and their patients need to access fundamental information to make their transition not only, smooth and safe but also successful. To achieve this kind of information sharing there is a need for stakeholders to improve communication between family care givers, health care providers, community support systems and patients (Himmelstein, 2010).

Lack of connectivity

It is recognized nationally that there is no connectivity between the long term care system and providers in the health care system. Institutions of medicine point out that the quality of health care in the US suffers not because the treatments are ineffective but because the healthcare delivery systems do not deliver the treatments. Fragmented health care raise health care costs for the patient and the hospitals (Furukawa, 2010). These inefficiencies unnecessarily increase costs for employers, patients, payers and providers. In spite of the fact that other sectors of the US economy have embraced technology as a cost of doing their business the US health care system is yet to roll it out on a wide-scale to enhance the provision of care (Fonkych, 2005).

Lack of Shared goals correlated to the switching of care

Since there is so much in the health care systems, objectives for care transition are in silos; where each department only worries about itself. There is no incentive to synchronize with the next or previous care site to establish what should be done. A study about coordination between family care givers and formal providers realized that interventions that emphasized on supportive relationships and communication quality that included shared goals and mutual respect for patient care was positively related to patients’ mental health, their freedom from pain and an augmented functional status (Elizabeth, 2012).

Demand for a continuous care plan and Consumer knowledge

It has been acknowledged that consumers do not have the incentive to become active health care system members. Regrettably, many consumers are also sadly not prepared to participate because of a misunderstanding on the responsibilities and roles of each member including themselves, lack of access to information, incomplete information on the true costs of health care services and poor encouragement from the health care system. It is projected that over eighty million US citizens face difficulties in comprehending and utilizing health information. Health Information Technology (HIT) could be fundamental in reaching caregivers and individuals in an effort to increase health literacy (DesRoches, 2010).

Issues of trust

In order to effectively implement health information technology the entire system should be comprehended by both the patients they serve and the providers who make use of them. There must be a visible policy that guides managerial decisions on the access and use of health information. This policy should also be comprehended by all stakeholders. Fears of private breaches due to misunderstanding of the current law have often caused hitches in wide Health Information Technology adoption and suitable information sharing. Patients could have fears on persons that could access their private information thus opting out of EMR (Borzekowski, 2009).

The representation of the continuum of care

Electronic communication will be successful if all stakeholders in the continuum can access the information. At the continuum’s heart are patients and their families. Policy should be enacted to ensure that the patient is the focal point of the care continuum and that families and their patients can access care information. Apart from that HIT should clearly outline that the wide care continuum which includes all health care service providers, physician offices, hospice, hospitals, rehabilitation centers, nursing homes and home health care organizations are included in wide ranging policy changes (Amarasingham, 2009).

Infrastructure and Interoperability

Health Information Technology (HIT) should be facilitated to export patients’ data to external providers and systems in a succinct and meaningful format. For instance there are two documentations included in the provisional final rule; the Continuity of Care Record (CCR) and the Continuity of Care Document (CCD).While CCR is intended for transmission to consumer platforms and personal health records CCD is for exchange between the health practitioners. These documents have an updated set of the most pertinent clinical, administrative and demographic information about a patient’s health care. While none of the documents are compatible with each other or universally recognized they offer a platform for communication between patients, settings and providers (Chaudhry, 2006).

Conclusion

The improvement of health care transition through health care information technology is a grand objective that needs motivation from many stakeholders. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation will thus collaborate with other stakeholders to address the following issues: opportunities of promoting team based care across and within providers by involving pharmacists and case managers, the necessity for standards that are both transitions of processes of care (best practices) and relative to technology (interoperability), lack of actual incentives for the sharing of information amongst and between all care settings founded on accountability for receiving and sending information as well as the eventual transition of care outcomes.

References

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