How Does Hit Effect Patient Care Outcomes, Essay Example

Health Information Technology (HIT) helps improve patient care outcomes for many reasons. Firstly, it helps physicians and nurses keep better track of the patient’s medical history. Before health information technology, hospitals and private practices needed to keep track of important patient records using paper records. Recording the information was slow, sometimes illegible, and difficult to quickly procure when needed. In contrast, HIT records are instantly placed into the patient’s file, type written so everyone who sees the patient is able to successfully view the information, and can be pulled up instantly. In addition to providing benefits to patients due to an increased ease of access, the electronic health record component allows healthcare professionals to gain a greater picture of the health of their patients. All medications and past health issues are listed in these documents, which will allow nurses and doctors a greater ability to treat their patients; this will lead to a decreased likelihood of prescribing interacting medications and improved rate of correctly diagnosing illness due to the ability to view symptoms over a longer range of time.

Health information technology is also useful for speedy transfer of documents between hospitals and insurance companies, doctors and patients, etc. This is allowing hospitals to be reimbursed for their services more quickly and enabling patients and their other healthcare practitioners to have a greater understanding of their health situation. Before health information technology systems were created, hospitals, doctors, and insurance companies all relied on conventional mail to send important documents. Not only is this method slow, the documents will travel slowly if they need to reach a faraway place, and there is potential for them to become lost, which may cause a major breach in patient confidentiality. Health information technology allows professionals who should have access to this information to transfer it quickly, with a click of a button. In situations where delivery does not occur, anyone with authority to access the particular part of the health information technology system that is needed could resend the document. Therefore, even in worst case scenarios, health information technology systems are still more effective in document transfer than conventional mailing methods.

Because health information technology has saved hospitals and private practices time, these intuitions have been able to save money and work more efficiently because resources that were previously pooled searching for these documents could be used elsewhere. This drastically improves patient care because this often means that healthcare professionals are able to spend more time with their patients rather than looking for and reading through their file information. This also helps reduce healthcare costs, which assists patients both with and without insurance. Patients without insurance will have to pay less money out of pocket because since the clinic is seeing more patients, they are making more money and will have to charge less to reimburse costs. Patients with insurance benefits will also benefit because they may be able to pay lower insurance premiums as a consequence of this.

Health information technology is effective in getting patients to become more engaged in the healthcare process. This technology could be used to explain to patients more about their health status and what could be done to improve it. A copy of the files could be provided to them, and in many cases, this will help improve their health because it will serve as a constant reminder of what they can and should do to be healthier. Health information technology can also be used to engage patients because it is an excellent way to track their progress across visits. This is engaging because the clinicians can use the system in a way to challenge the patient to make healthier decisions. If the patient makes unhealthy choices, the clinician will know that the patient is failing to make progress; the incentive to please the clinician is usually enough motivation for many people to begin altering their habits.

If I were a patient at my group’s healthcare organization, the healthcare employees would generally interact with me first by signing me into the office, then by interviewing me about my health, running a basic physical, asking more questions, and then recommending treatment options. The heath information technology product fits into this process at many different levels. Firstly, the health information technology is used to help sign the patient in and keep track of their visits; it will allow the healthcare assistant to know information such as the last time the patient came in for a visit and whether they come in as frequently as recommended. Next, the clinician reviews the health information technology product to see what the patient visited for on the last visit in addition to review information about past illness and medication. Furthermore it is used to both confirm and add to information that is provided in the interview, which may guide specific questions asked. Lastly, it will be used to record the patient’s new health status, potential diagnoses, treatments and medications recommended, and information about when the patient should next visit the office.