Question

What separates health care information from other business/commercial information?

What are the unique conditions, relationships, and concerns of health care information and how does/should this impact the use and design of health care dataabses?

please provide a reference

Subject: healthcare information

Answer 1

health information system (HIS) refers to a system designed to manage healthcare data. This includes systems that collect, store, manage and transmit a patient’s electronic medical record (EMR), a hospital’s operational management or a system supporting healthcare policy decisions.

Health information systems also include those systems that handle data related to the activities of providers and health organizations. As an integrated effort, these may be leveraged to improve patient outcomes, inform research, and influence policy-making and decision-making. Because health information systems commonly access, process, or maintain large volumes of sensitive data, security is a primary concern.

Health information technology (HIT) involves the development of health information systems.

Key Components of a Health Information System
Health information systems consist of six key components, including:

Resources the legislative, regulatory, and planning frameworks required for system functionality. This includes personnel, financing, logistics support, information and communications technology (ICT), and mechanisms for coordinating both within and between the six components.
Indicators – a complete set of indicators and relevant targets, including inputs, outputs, and outcomes, determinants of health, and health status indicators.
Data sources – including both population-based and institution-based data sources.
Data management – collection and storage, QA, processing and flow, and compilation and analysis.
Information products – data which has been analyzed and presented as actionable information.
Dissemination and use – the process of making data available to decision-makers and facilitating the use of that information.

Types of Health Information Systems
1 Strategic or Operational Systems
Strategic or operational systems are typically used for information classification. Provisions are made for information systems based on the type of information they’re handling. A pyramid classification system allows organizations to assess the spread of digitization. Because operational systems are generally developed before executive information systems or management information systems, this is easily achieved. The ability to evaluate dependencies can help to identify system deficiencies, as well. For example, a properly configured information system should pull data from a clinical system rather than require nurses and clinicians to collect and document data manually.

2 Clinical and Administrative Systems for Managing Patient Information on an Administrative Level
Clinical systems are dependent on administrative data. The foundation of an integrated HIS is a master index developed around the most basic patient information with links to different clinical systems, and the clinical system contains the electronic patient record (EPR), diagnostic data, outcomes, and processing.

3 Electronic Health Record and Patient Health Record
Open EHR aims to enable semantic interoperability for health information systems between various EHR systems in a non-proprietary format to prevent vendor lock-in. Knowledge concepts are stored outside the EHR as archetypes, which support the recording of clinical information. Archetype building blocks include instructions, evaluations, observations, and actions, and information built using these building blocks is stored in the EHR.

4 Subject- and Task-Based Systems
Subject-based systems are related to patients or healthcare professionals in any type of healthcare organization. Task-based systems, on the other hand, are associated with particular tasks such as admission or discharge. Subject-based systems are often preferred, as they reduce data duplication. In a task-based system, the same subject could be related to various tasks, with basic information such as the patient’s ID being duplicated across each task. In a subject-based system, this basic information is entered only once and flows with the subject through various tasks. For example, an EHR is a subject-based system.

5 Financial and Clinical Health Information Systems
These systems provide easy access to patient financial information, such as costs and payors, and they also aid in monitoring patient usage of different departments or services. Financial systems typically include invoicing capabilities as well as tools for following up on non-payments.

6 Decision Support Systems
Decision support systems convert data to clinically relevant information and present it in actionable form to clinicians, aiding in adherence to regulatory guidelines and best practices. These systems can give results for several data manipulations to mimic cognitive processing. For example, a decision support system may provide a list of medications for a particular condition appropriate for the patient’s demographics, such as the patient’s age and weight, as well as any comorbidities. Decision support systems can also facilitate next steps in the workflow, such as submitting a prescription to the pharmacy and scheduling a follow-up appointment for the patient.
Examples of Health Information Systems
Master Patient Index (MPI)
Medical billing software
Patient portals
Health Information Exchange (HIE)
Activity Based Costing (ABC)
Patient Reported Outcomes (PRO)
Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM)
Scheduling software
e-Prescribing software
Laboratory information systems
Hospital Patient Administration Systems (PAS)
Human Resource Management Information Systems (HRMIS)

Benefits of Health Information Systems
The healthcare industry relies on a massive amount of data to make decisions about patient care, facilitate the delivery of care, and handle the many complex administrative tasks that go on behind the scenes. Health information systems are valuable tools that aid clinicians and administrative personnel in ensuring a seamless patient experience from end-to-end. Other benefits include:

Data analytics – HIS help to gather and analyze data to manage population health and reduce healthcare costs.
Supports collaborative care – HIS facilitates the sharing of PHI between providers and organizations, making it possible for patients to receive coordinated care from multiple providers while improving care delivery and patient outcomes.
Cost control – By sharing information, HIS can eliminate duplicate testing and procedures, reduce time demands on staff (such as for sending paper copies of patient records), and reduce costly human errors.
Population health management – Aggregating patient data can help to identify patterns and trends, predict or prevent outbreaks, identify at-risk populations, and more.
Clinical decision support – Integrating a patient’s individual data and medical history with broader population data and research improves both diagnostics and treatment.

Disadvantage
1 – Expensive

An increasingly sophisticated health technology definitely does not come cheap. We have to understand that all first world national healthcare systems face a range of challenges; one of which is the ageing population. People are living longer. So what does this imply? This means an increased health needs but the working population generatinng income to pay for healthcare system is reduced. So one consideration would be, is the high cost which comes with high technology economically viable for the government?
2 – Requires time to adapt fast

As we know, technology is constantly evolving. Many a time there will be new softwares, new upgrades, new way of doing things. In order to keep up with the competitive edge, hospital staff has to keep up with such changes. This can be a struggle for some, especially for the older staff.
3 – Over-dependency on technology

While once the staff has adapted to the new way of work, there comes the next problem. It is not uncommon for a computer system to face technical errors. The health care informatics system is no exception. This problem is especially crucial in the Accident & Emergency (A&E) Department. Various departments in the hospital are interconnected by a common information system. When 1 department is down, others are affected. For example, a patient was rushed into the A&E Department. When there is an error while retrieving blood analysis information, the rest of the procedures following it will be delayed. This will cause huge inconveniences, or worse; it may even have adverse effects in the patient’s health condition.
4 – Susceptibility to network hackers

Patients’ medical history and other health information should be kept confidential for ethical and legal reasons. While the health care system network is definitely equipped with security measures, it is not impossible for network hacking to occur. Hence, this is certainly a vulnerability of Health Informatics.