Question

There are tasks that need to be included when planning Release of Information Department function for a new healthcare facilty.

What should be included in these two areas: Information Systems needed for release of information and Management Systems needed for release of information.

Answer 1

Information Systems needed in a new healthcare facility:

• A hospital information systems which can integrate clinical, financial and operational information for smooth administration
• IS which can efficiently store and manage Patients’ data/ medical records, overall doctor’s/ practitioners’/ nurses’ / management key personnel’s data
• IS should be able to keep update track of all kinds of inventories related to a health care facility such as medicines/ equipment/ laboratory items info along with their distribution track, so that emergency cases could be well dealt with and appropriate future forecasting can be done
• Support real time information flow in all sorts of operational activities
• Billing and dispatch, reimbursements, renewals etc. should be of trouble free operations
• information integrity and data security at strong level
• IS should support reporting, research, legal and other functions

Management Systems needed for release of information:

• HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) privacy rule shows specific requirements for the management of health information
• System should ensure confidentiality of a patient
• Ensure compliance with statutory norms in releasing protected health information

• It should drive quality control, productivity management, turnaround times, and backlog management
• It should track and monitor a request from receipt through final disposition

• Systems should not only process a request, but review it’s content, verify it legally, appropriateness of release, and complete it
• Has right to access to appropriate state and federal regulation references