Connecting the Future in Healthcare Institutions, Research Paper Example

In the past ten years there has been increased demand for seamless service between hospitals, clinics and multidisciplinary teams concerned with the wellbeing of patients and their families. Healthcare organizations seeking competitive and more efficient options to serving patients now look to IT Healthcare Management Information Systems (HMIS) for optimizing capacity both in terms of finance and in standard of care to patients.

Tan and Payton (2010) cite that HMIS do a lot of work where humans once toiled. In research on the topic, they argue that the sophistication of HMIS infrastructures address: 1) healthcare provider interconnectivity; 2) tracking and management of chronic diseases; 3) increase patient input in care process; 4) alleviate market pressures driving hospital-physician alignment; and 5) allow for incorporation of new technological advancements in this area as they become available.

Patients seeking extended care, in health promotion, disease prevention and chronic disease management report that HMIS lends immediacy to comprehensive care solutions never met previously. Research conducted on chronic care patients suggests improvement to overall health with incorporation of enhanced referral and clinical information sourced in evidence-based practice into services provisions available through their primary care physicians has done much to advance patient self-management.

Part of the movement toward HMIS reflects sophistication in healthcare institutions, and especially large budget organizations such as hospitals to implement change management practices into every level of the entities strategic plan for growth. As aforementioned, part of the proof of the saliency of HMIS in change operations restructuring of healthcare institutions is the increased willingness of the patient to participate. The general optimism toward a user friendly IT based healthcare environment that can be accessed from home is exceptional in terms of the ready access to care that was not so long ago unavailable without making a physical trip to the actual institution.

Outside the hospital environment in traditional medical settings not dedicated to research, the incorporation of information from the research sphere of the public health field also finds measure within HMIS, as data generated from these tools offers patients and their communities, reinforcement for risk reduction measures and goal oriented progress in their own healthcare. Organizations that are responsive to the integrated or consortium of services approaches are dependent upon the capacity building prospects of HMIS; automatically linking them to public policy funded partnerships, research and networked healthcare plans. For referral providers, public health providers, and practitioners of alternative therapies HMIS networks serve as a bridge for an array of otherwise unavailable medical interventions. As professional portals for recruitment, HMIS propose a new solution to shortages within the healthcare field, as specialists are made aware of employment opportunities, conferences and training at collaborating agencies and local hospitals.

Increased spending and strategic planning on HMIS networks inevitable, yet most healthcare institutions have already bought into the idea that the entire industry is moving in this direction. Knowledge sharing is the core competency of HMIS (Tan and Payton, 2010).  Technically speaking, implementation of new healthcare informatics (HI) into an existing environment can cause challenges as older “legacy” systems may be present from which data must be mined and merged, or simply working side-by-side as employees attempt to shore up both so not to lose precious data on patients, finance and institutional operations.

Interface with open source software optimizes programming and ensures security meets standard specification in control systems architecture type, and in navigation of potential firewalls, encryption and intrusion detection. Building HMIS integration into existing systems includes consideration of the following: 1) the basic hardware, software and network schema; 2) process, task and system(s); 3) integration and inoperability aspects; and 4) user, administration and/or management inputs and oversight (Tan and Payton, 2010).

The virtual plethora of records management platforms that can be built into an institutions HMIS network include an extensive, yet not exhaustive list of the following databases: Customer Relations Management (CRM); Electronic Health Records (EHR); Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP); Personal Health Records (PHR); and Supply Chain Management (SCM) dedicated to total operations management control, patient referral and professional knowledge sharing (Tan and Payton, 2010). Ultimately, the new HMIS networks offer much desired interconnectivity between operational units within healthcare institutions; linking artificial intelligence with human record and logistics data for depth accounting of expenditures and allocation requests.

Opponents to the HMIS systems models exist however, and some argue that too much integration does little upfront with the exception add unnecessary expenses. Moreover, database information from patients, especially regarding insurance might conflict with discretionary omissions desired by the patient under care by a physician. Bundled payments are also of concern, and while many patients argue that the option to pay installments on one balance of payments is preferable, others indicate that continued separation of monies owed to different providers serves to counter payment on unwanted and unnoticed services (Monegain, 2010). Insurance providers like HMIS options as they seem to reduce confusion in client-patients. Insurance clients now have the ability to track their own medical history and link to provider services through one account.

Other critiques leveraged by institutional and supplier participants referenced offer that too much integration is unnecessary, in that insurance provision does not need to be linked to operations and logistics, and chain management of those channels is of course inherently separate and should remain so. Perhaps the only voice of dissent in all of this is that of the financial oversight, as each step in the data collection process requires an equivalent reporting process for analysis. Dedicated nodes in the HMIS network are bound to exist, but at each juncture separate fiscal accountability must be met, and ultimately converged in institutional audits, and related accounting responsibilities.

The prominence of Chief Information Officers (CIO) in healthcare institutions in the past several years reveals that the role of HMIS as a critical infrastructural framework for oversight of operations and patient care. CIO’s are fundamentally IT professionals, and training into the highly dense information field of medicine requires special proficiency not typically cited in the more general professional portfolio of a traditional corporate CEO (www.cio.com, 2010). Still, in the medical field chief executive officers are more likely to wear several hats, but the centering of the CIO as the new responsible party to both administration and operations management through networked information control is highly evolved from prior change management leadership that sought to merely streamline actual logistics channels or instigate motivational settings etc. The CIO is instead responsible for the quality of business intelligence, and responsive to improving the knowledge field continuously so that all other change management strategies may work together through HMIS.

As healthcare institutions look to the future, and populations grow, staying connected with patients and colleagues through cutting-edge education options, and communications preparation of health care teams and communities, HMIS offers perhaps the quickest route to sustaining institutional presence in the promotion of care continuity. HMIS also encourages quality of institutional leadership through incentive at meeting core competencies toward organizational expansion and professional growth. Independent access to information by way of HMIS supports self management and problem prevention, and also the development of expertise by use of information systems; creating a positive environment for any multidisciplinary healthcare team. In chronic care settings, this new model of organizational transformation and leadership oversight of an IT care model offers excellent possibilities for changing care systems and driving health care improvement one patient at a time.    

References

Monegain, B. (2010). N.C. health system to launch bundled payment pilot. Healthcare Finance News, 22 June 2010. Retrieved from: http://www.healthcarefinancenews.com

Tan, J. and Payton, F.C. (2010). Adaptive Health Management Information Systems: Concepts, Cases, & Practical Applications, Third Edition. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

The imperative to be customer-centric IT leaders (2010). CIO.com. Retrieved from: www.cio.com