Articles
Discuss the state of the scientific underpinnings that relate to Health Information Systems (HIT) and how they assist in preventing Medical errors
Recently the medical health safety has experienced tremendous development. There has been a lot of concern about medical errors that result in hospitals and health care systems and which are avoidable. In order to address this issue, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology projected the integration of Health Information Technology into the organizations that deliver health care. These measures will enhance the quality of health care by eradicating all avoidable errors thus making the health care system safer as compared to that of paper records.
One way in which Health Information System (HIT) helps in minimizing errors is by establishment of electronic health records (EHRs). Electronic records eliminate errors resulting from illegible writings as well as prescription errors. HIT provides a central storage of medical records for easy access and retrieval by the medical personnel. The data on the electronic documents can be accessed by various health care organizations from different places. It is therefore possible for the medical experts to take care of in emergency rooms by accessing their medical records electronically (Goldsmith & Siegel, January 01, 2012). Furthermore, Health Information Technology (HIT) provides efficient track, report and aggregation of patients’ data across various health care organizations. This integration assists the healthcare providers to be able to track and manage disease outbreaks and it can help in managing the spread of diseases.
How current is the science that supported the practice or practice guidelines for Information Systems (HIT) and how they assist in preventing Medical errors.
The main intention of introduction of Health Information Technology (HIT) is to transform the health care to make it safer. The current technology electronic medical records (EMRs) and Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) is among the modern technologies in the field of health (Topol, 2012). This current innovation has made the maintenance of patients’ information easier and safer by providing the clinician with a longitudinal source of information. The longitudinal source of information that is available in electronic medical records includes previous encounter history, diagnostic history and medical documents.
There are also more advanced systems for instance the clinical decision support system (CDSS) that helps the medical personnel in linking health observations with the medical knowledge. This way they help the health care providers in making decision. Also, computer-assisted decision support systems have been developed to assists the health care providers in gathering information related to the patients in order to help them solve the problems efficiently and also to make decisions faster. These technological advancements and their applications in the field of health have improved the state health in medical institutions as well as minimizing medical errors.
What new evidence has emerged since the practice guidelines were crafted and adopted? Give one or two examples that support your assessment
The clinical practice guidelines were crafted and implemented in 1992 in order to improve the health care. Since their establishment, these guidelines have been progressively developed to cater for the current needs of the patients. Also, they are able to deal with more complex health conditions in the modern world (Shekelle, Woolf, Grimshaw, Schünemann & Eccles, 2012). Besides, they provide the clinicians with routine guidelines that promote the elimination of medical errors in health institutions. Guideline clearing house for instance, Agency for Health Research and Quality (AHRQ) and robust guideline Appraisal Guidance for Research and Evaluation (AGREE) tool have recently emerged and helps the heath care providers in identifying and characterizing guidelines.
References
Shekelle, P., Woolf, S., Grimshaw, J. M., Schünemann, H. J., & Eccles, M. P. (2012).
Developing clinical practice guidelines: reporting, reviewing, updating guidelines publishing guidelines; and the emerging issues of enhancing guideline implementability and accounting for comorbid conditions in guideline development. Implementation Science: IS, 7, 62. Doi: 10.1186/1748-5908-7-62
Goldsmith, D., & Siegel, M. (January 01, 2012). Improving Health Care Management Through the Use of Dynamic Simulation Modeling and Health Information Systems. International Journal of Information Technologies and Systems Approach (ijitsa), 5, 1, 19-36.Topol, E. J. (2012).
The creative destruction of medicine: How the digital revolution will create better health care. New York: Basic Books.
