In the healthcare industry, there are many mysterious acronyms and confusing job titles. Health information technology (HIT) is a new term you have come across recently, and you’re curious to learn more.
The health information technology field stores, retrieves, shares, and uses personal health information. As a result, health information technology can be managed across computerized systems and exchanged securely between physicians, patients, payers, and quality monitors.
Electronic records replace paper records when it comes to doctor visits and treatment. A health information technology infrastructure is not complete without computer hardware and software.
Table of Contents
What is health information technology?
A health information technology (Health IT) is an electronic system that healthcare professionals use to capture, organize, and share health information. Healthcare information technology includes:
The electronic health record (EHR)
Health information in an EHR allows doctors to better manage their patients’ health and may even be accessible if their offices are closed. Additionally, EHRs make it easier for your doctor to share information with specialists, so that specialists who need your information can get it whenever they need it.
The personal health record (PHR)
Similar to an EHR, but with the control over which types of information are stored in it. In addition to planning your doctor visits and keeping track of your health information, your PHR can also keep track of what you eat, how much you exercise, and your blood pressure. It is possible for your PHR to link to your doctor’s electronic health record.
E-prescriptions (electronic prescribing)
You can lose or misread a paper prescription. A doctor can order prescriptions directly from a pharmacy when he or she uses e-prescribing. By bringing the digital prescription to the pharmacy, you do not have to bring the paper prescription with you.
Security and privacy
You can increase the protection of your health information by using any of these electronic systems. Electronic information, for example, can be encrypted so that only authorized individuals can read it. Additionally, medical information technology makes it easier to record and track how your information has been accessed.
Why does HIT matter?
The digital age necessitates the use of health information technology. Patrick Gauthier, director of healthcare solutions for Advocates for Human Potential, Inc., says in 2019, healthcare consumers will continue to ask for greater transparency, accessibility, and personalization. All of these factors and more are affected by HIT.
Interoperability-the ability to share patient information quickly between hospitals and clinics-can make the difference between life and death for some patients. It states that EHRs and other HIT tools maximize patient care coordination, resulting in more affordable healthcare expenses and a higher quality of patient care.
Health information technology and HIPAA
Health information technology is being incorporated into the daily routines of more and more health care providers. Health data processing and storage using electronic means have been associated with:
- Better health care at an affordable price
- Medical mistakes are less common
- Reducing the amount of paperwork
- Patient management and care should be more focused
When it comes to new technologies and unexplored territory, there is always uncertainty. Information technology for health care is no exception, so it is vital to ensure the privacy and security of sensitive patient data.
Information transmitted from one doctor to another and from one doctor to another needs to be protected as health IT becomes more common. Health information technology systems need HIPAA rules and regulations as much as any other industry in the health care sector.
Benefits of health information technology
Most consumers will first learn about the benefits of health IT at their doctor’s office or in the hospital, when they use an electronic health record, or EHR.
Paperwork is reduced with EHRs.
Clipboards and new patient questionnaires may remain a part of your doctor’s office for some time. By the time you arrive at the hospital, your doctor and hospital will have more information in your EHR. This will reduce the hassle factor in health care by reducing the number of forms for you to complete.
Electronic health records get your information into the hands of the people who need it.
It can be difficult to coordinate information among health care providers, even if your needs are relatively simple. This can result in medical mistakes if not handled properly.
Each provider can access more accurate and up-to-date information about your care when all of your providers can share your health information electronically through EHRs. This gives your providers the best chance of making the right decision, especially during crisis situations.
You are safer and more coordinated when your doctors use an electronic health record.
A primary care physician may refer you to three specialists. There are many different drugs that each of them may prescribe, and sometimes, these drugs may interact harmonizing. If your healthcare provider prescribes a medicine that may cause such a reaction, the EHR can alert you.
In addition, an EHR may alert your doctors if another doctor has already prescribed a drug that turned out to be ineffective for you, so you do not have to risk or pay for ineffective drugs.
The use of an EHR reduces unnecessary procedures and tests.
Was there ever a time when a doctor’s orders had to be repeated because another doctor couldn’t get a hold of the results? There was a risk to these tests, and they were uncomfortable and inconvenient, as well as a financial burden.
In the form of bigger bills and increased insurance premiums, repeating tests cause you to incur higher costs, whether they are $20 blood tests or $2,000 MRIs. An electronic health record allows all of your care providers access to your records at once, which decreases the likelihood of unnecessary testing.
A health record is directly accessible through an EHR.
It’s already federally guaranteed that you are entitled to see your health records, identify errors and omissions, and make changes if necessary in the U.S.
Patients with EHRs can access their health information online directly from their providers in a way that helps to preserve privacy and security. Having this type of access may enable you to keep better track of your health care, or you may be able to ask questions right away instead of waiting hours or days for a response to your phone call. Your health care provider may also be able to communicate directly with you through this access.
Incorporating health IT into healthcare
On August 18, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) of the Department of Health & Human Services announced a nationwide, multi-pronged campaign to educate people on Putting the I in Health ITSM.
With this campaign, readers and viewers will be able to explore stories that tell the story of our nation’s transition to an electronic health care environment, breaking down the complex subject of health IT.
IT in health care can relieve you of the daily hassle of caring for yourself instead of having to deal with everyday tasks. As an example:
Prescriptions that are more accurate and faster:
You can easily order your medicine online and automatically have it delivered to the pharmacy ahead of time. A paper prescription made by a messy handwritten hand can also cause medication errors; e-prescribing will not create those problems.
Rapid sharing of information
When your EHR is updated with patient notes or test results, those documents may be accessible to health care providers authorized to see your records. These providers can then have access to the most up-to-date information about your health.
You may be able to access your own health information directly from some health care providers, removing the need to wait for your doctor to respond with information, such as test results.
The creation of less paperwork:
As a patient, you probably have answered the same questions on the same seemingly identical forms dozens of times. The health care providers may not need to remind you of the same facts every time when they share your electronic health record.
Reducing unnecessary tests:
- Doctors sometimes order tests you’ve already had because they do not have access to your past results. Health care providers will be able to refer to prior test results in EHRs that can talk to each other, saving a lot of time, money, and discomfort by ordering only what is truly needed.
Improved follow-up and follow-through:
- Various EHRs provide reminder systems which are designed to be used by both doctor and patient. Some EHRs, for instance, remind your doctor to follow up with you about ongoing health conditions or to offer you information or services when your health improves.
Additionally, certain EHRs can notify you by email or text message about making or keeping appointments, staying current with treatment and medication, and improving your health.
Information security:
- If a natural disaster or some other disaster occurs, an EHR will allow you to reassembly your records, as well as make them available to providers away from home in the event that you need to move.
To manage your care effectively, the Federal Government requires that certified systems meet certain security standards, and your State’s laws may require additional safeguards to ensure your information is secure.
Where does HIT go from here?
Technology continues to develop and expand, and the global HIT industry is no exception. Health organizations are now more easily able to share data, which is allowing the next wave of HIT to enter the market, says Jason Reed of Best Rx For Savings, a 17-year clinical HIT worker. The stage is set for a radical transformation of medical care with the help of HIT.”
The trend is for HIT workers to soon work with cutting-edge technology such as virtual reality surgeries, smartphone data monitoring, and artificial intelligence. Using algorithms to teach machines how to detect patterns in mountains of EHR data is also a growing industry that will create many jobs, Reed says.
Patients can look forward to an exciting future thanks to advances in HIT. In the near future, wearable health trackers will be available alongside simpler ways to communicate with a healthcare team.
Who are the people who work in information technology?
We need to think about the variety of roles of the health information technology realm first to answer this question. Health information technicians, health information managers, and health informatics specialists are among the jobs in this field that are almost exclusively focused on patient medical records. Additionally, there are HIT professionals who focus more on traditional information technology work such as designing, implementing, and maintaining computer networks. The HIT experts share the same goal regardless of their role: to use technology to improve patient care, and healthcare in general.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), health information technicians are usually responsible for ensuring the accuracy of patient data, such as physician notes and lab results, as well as organizing and maintaining databases.
HIT is heavily focused on maintaining patient privacy and adhering to strict government regulations because medical records contain sensitive information about patients. HIT professionals ensure that the technology systems that support healthcare are secure and compliant with regulatory standards so that sensitive medical documents remain accessible only to those who are supposed to have access.
How to Implement Successfully:
- Planning – It is essential to engage physicians and to involve them in the design and wider use of HIT during the planning phase. To ensure the project’s success, medical input should be incorporated every step of the way in the system’s design. There should be an individual appointed by the practice who has leadership skills so other doctors and staff members can buy-in.
- Resource Allocation – Human resources as well as financial resources will need to be allocated. Members of the clinical staff and physicians should be included in this group. Choosing the right system vendor should be undertaken by the project manager.
- Equipment – Check whether wireless connections can be accommodated in the work environment. Assess the type of hardware that will be compatible with the vendor’s software and serve as the best match for the providers.
Take into account the office space and workflow capacity when determining logistics. It will be necessary to interface equipment like fax machines, scanners, and printers with the system. So, all of these details are important to take into account when designing a system.
Framework
Having a logical framework is vital in order to make the change sustainable. It may be necessary to have teams undertake the groundwork first, then embed the change.Stressing the benefits of the technology is essential to creating a sense of urgency for the change.
It is desirable that the vision be clear and uplifting, and that the group guiding and championing the process be composed of individuals who can align resources to achieve the stated objectives. Everyone should be informed of the benefits of electronic systems, and some of the most significant benefits are listed below:
- CliP provides clinicians with decision support tools that help them to increase accuracy when ordering.
- Customizing care as needed, ensuring patient-centered care.
- Orders were sent to receiving departments much more quickly due to the enhanced efficiency.
- The quality and depth of data collected on a continuous basis enable staff to continuously review and analyze orders and outcomes.
All employees must be informed of the attempts and objectives through ongoing communication, including meetings of the medical staff and other departments. When possible, remove any obstacles to facilitate the use of the system and empower people. A thorough and timely response to concerns and problems will speed up the implementation process. Momentum can be built by achieving short-term victories along the way.
To illustrate the impact of technology, show doctors a quality dashboard with early stage outcomes or one that provides snapshots of patient outcomes along with benchmarks. As a new culture slowly emerges, momentum must continue to be maintained. Physicians can best be involved in the implementation process by getting them involved throughout all stages.
The following include examples of different types of health information and medical records:
- To ensure accuracy and completeness of cancer patient records, cancer registrars review pathology reports. The codes they assign to cancer and benign tumors are used for diagnosis and treatment. An annual follow-up is conducted by cancer registrars in order to track treatment, survival, and recovery. Among their responsibilities is collecting and analyzing cancer patient information and maintaining patient databases for facilities, regions, and countries.
- Patients’ treatment and followup information is collected, analyzed, and tracked by health information technicians. Records requests are handled by them, as well as permissions and other legal requests. Other staff in the department of health information management can also rely on these technicians for administrative support.
- In medical coding, diagnoses and procedures are coded for billing purposes, health statistics, and patient care. To ensure accurate coding of patient data, they might review patient information for preexisting conditions, such as diabetes. Additionally, they act as a liaison between healthcare providers and billing offices.
Here are some strategies for success:
- Choosing the right system– Making the wrong choice can cause many problems, such as disruption of patient care and physician dissatisfaction. The decision regarding which system to purchase should be aligned with the clinical strategic vision and take into consideration its feature set, ease of use, and satisfaction rates of other customers with similar situations.
Visit the sites of clients who are currently using the vendor’s product to get an idea of how well the product is working. By doing so, users can observe how the system performs in various patient care areas during peak hours.
- Building a Partnership – Choosing the correct system vendor is crucial to ensuring a successful business relationship. Considering that the relationship with a vendor extends far beyond the adoption and implementation phases, trustworthiness should be taken into account.
After the initial purchase, support will certainly be needed, and expectations must match what the vendor originally promised. There will inevitably be problems, and when vendors have a good relationship with customers, issues are quickly resolved and support is always available.
- Pricing – It is important to scrutinize the vendor’s products, services, and support when negotiating. In addition to the purchase price, the system must be supported, upgraded, and maintained.
- Prepare the physicians – When a vendor submits a proposal, the physicians can request a demonstration. Scheduling meetings with physicians so that strategies can be discussed will help identify workflows and clinical processes that can be streamlined. Educating physicians and their assistants can be invaluable in the fight against HIT. Make these sessions mandatory.
- Projections – The implementation will impact patient volume until the practice has adjusted to the associated changes. It is therefore wise for physicians to anticipate a reduction in productivity initially. Until appropriate budgetary decisions can be made, this will necessarily impact revenue. In order to predict practice revenue for the first 90 days, monthly cash flow projections should assume decreases between 25% and (worst case scenario) 40%.
- After go-live, lighten the schedule for elective clinical procedures during the first month to accommodate system inefficiencies. If the system has already been set up, periodically refresher courses should be offered. Analyze metrics concerning the quality of service, billing accuracy, and customer satisfaction. This data should be displayed on a dashboard and provided to physicians and management for review on a monthly basis.
Implementing new technology throughout a company is inherently disruptive, as it places additional burdens and challenges on employees, but there are strategies to make the transition more successful, as described above. Having the whole team of physicians and staff committed to the transition will greatly improve its smoothness and return on investment.