Question

In a 1-2 page report, assess how the information is being collected and how it could potentially be used; specifically in HIM-related reports.

Define data analytics

Include a description of how the data/information is being collected

Discuss how the data could be use in HIM-related reports

Answer 1

Data analytics is the collection of qualitative and quantitative techniques used to analyse data in order to gain valuable insights about data, which further aid refining the decision process of for trade and commerce, medical practice, and many more. Though there are no limits to the applications of data analytics, they are used very widely in the B2C space where businesses collect, store and analyze data about consumer spending behavior and trends to either target the customers more effectively, or improve business processes.

Data about patients and their medical history is a very important area where data analytics helps understand the different treatment plans which work the best for different kinds of cases. This is very effectively done by HIM professionals, who collect and store the data given by medical institutions, and are better equipped to analyze them in a structured way to help feed into similar cases coming up in future, while also maintaining the confidentiality of medical data. This helps the medical institutions to better understand cases by taking cues from history, and also improves the efficiency of healthcare services dispensed to patients going forward. The data collected in huge, called as Big Data, and is more efficiently stored in NoSQL databases like MongoDB, HDFS (Hadoop Distributed File System), etc which are specialized in handling unstructured Big Data.

The data can be used in HIM related reports to understand efficient treatment plans easily and more accurately. The data can be used to develop HIM reports which can analyze historical treatments and case more efficiently and faster, which can help reduce the ever-rising treatment costs in developed countries. Such a report can be of interest to healthcare institutions as well, as these days due to rising competition they're getting paid more on the basis of quality of treatment and outcome that they offer to their patients. Hence, the data is much more easily available to be used by HIM professionals.