How Modern Medical Industries Function for the Public, Essay Example

The healthcare industry is one of the most important aspects of social construction that provides a stronger and more implicative ground for development that communities tend to depend upon. Most often than not, this is the reason why most healthcare organizations [or at least a majority of its number] are manned and operated by the government. Administrators from all over the globe are given mandate and responsibility to handle distinct public healthcare needs. The realization that these individuals have towards such situations do provide a definite instantiation on how well they are able to improve the living condition of the people they are supposed to govern upon.

Noticeably, the society have become more concerned about how technology advances fully and how well it is being adapted by institutions that are supposed to provide public service. Relatively, it could be realized that through time of improvement and development, computer applications and software programs have become more complicated and response to social needs especially in relation to the basic requirements for survival [including healthcare concerns]. In this discussion, a presentation of details related to improving healthcare function through implementing IT applications that are sure to develop healthcare service competence and develop healthcare information mobility shall be better given attention to.

Critical Factors in Implementing Healthcare Information Technology Infrastructure

Introduction                

The critical issues regarding healthcare has caused the healthcare industry to be impaled especially when it comes to serving a number of individuals in the society requiring particular attention [especially during points of emergencies] (Wager, et al, 2009). Social healthcare turmoil often cause commotion in the society and at some point, the capacity of the healthcare agencies to serve the needs of the public during these emergencies is then challenged especially in the ways by which they handle the course of hard operations especially when it comes to implementing new strategies that could make it easier for them to complete their responsibilities.

IT operations have been seen to have a great impact on such requirement. People around the globe are now being fully affected by such matter. IT operations or Information Technology infrastructures adapted by public institutions are designed to practically create a more definite distinction on how the past culture of medical operations are separated from how modern medical considerations are handled accordingly (Wager, et al, 2009). Most often than not, IT infrastructures designed to support healthcare operations are expected to improve the manner of data storage and management that administrators tend to embrace; relatively, such matter introduces a sense of control especially when it comes to making a definite turn on how Information Technology systems ought to affect the way they serve the public’s needs as their primary stakeholders.

Application of New IT Infrastructure

What makes a good IT Infrastructure that supports the primary healthcare operations handled in this modern world? The practicality of the features of the said IT infrastructure is one that is to be given full concern of. Healthcare institutions are expected to serve several numbers of groups of individuals in the community; and given such concern of responsibility requires that an IT infrastructure be able to mandate data management with a huge scale of development be considered accordingly.

At present, the most effective sense of healthcare IT infrastructure ever introduced to the modern community is noted as the modern EMR or the Integrated Electronic Medical Record. This infrastructure started out as a simple software program that allows healthcare institutions to encode and store in data about their patients for future referencing. Likely, it could be understood that with such concern, the first EMR formats are quite simple and easier to manage. However, as the time passes, developers of such programs have found it necessary to take on the option of further developing the system into something that is more complex yet more implicative of responding to the needs of the public and the healthcare institutions in order to promote a better sense of directing the current healthcare resources into undergoing effective distribution and management. This desire leads to the mandate of a better essence of directing resources towards the possibility of responding to the major needs of the society during a particular span of time.

Today, instead of serving as a storing system only, modern EMRs and EHRs [Electronic Health Record] systems are able to do more than just store the data collected from the patients. Among the features that these programs are noted for is the process by which several healthcare institutions [including clinics, hospitals and pharmacies] could already thrive in a networked connection especially in the hope of creating a more cooperative system that would make it easier to serve the needs of the public accordingly. Existing side-by-side through the use of an operational EMR and EHR, these institutions are expected to provide the most effective sense of service that could be used to determine the improved option of development and recovery that patients need to undergo.

The more complex design of these programs though have increased the requirement for the integration of new staff members who would be capable of handling the management operations that is needed for manning such programs. What then should be done? It has been realized through time that training existing personnel to make use of the new EMR and EHR systems provide the best benefit for current healthcare institutions opting to embrace such process of development in redefining how the IT infrastructure they embrace would actually improve the way they serve the needs of the public they are supposed to protect.

Critical Factors of Application

Business Nature of the Healthcare Institution

One of the most critical points to consider when finding the right IT Infrastructure model that would be used by a particular healthcare institution is the basis or the foundation of operation of the organization. Is the healthcare business-defined or service-define? Referring to the main goals of the organization, such matter could be identified accordingly. Noticeably, the business nature of the healthcare institution being addressed in the development being proposed would determine what particular type of EMR or EHR the organization needs. This would entail the creation of new features of the program that would specifically fit the functions and operations undergone by the organization for the sake of serving the public.

Customized Formats Designed to Support Specific Data-Management Operations

What makes good EMR and EHR applications is that of their customized features that fit the needs of the organization fully. With such customization comes a distinct insistence on how the information encoded into the system could be mandated and how it could be further used for better assumption of data-referencing needed to improve the case of a particular patient (Francis, 2006). Most often than not, it is with these features that healthcare organizations are able to reach the expectations that the public has set for them to embrace.

Reliable Information

With good and reliable information, the attention needed by a particular patient could be immediately noted. Updating the files that are kept in the system is then necessary. Making sure that they are also stored and protected through firewalls and authorization sanctions would redefine the manner by which modern healthcare institutions operate according to the demands and expectations of the modern society.

Engagement of all stakeholders in implementing change

Who are to be involved in the implementation of the needed change? The change needed to be given attention to should be communicated properly to every stakeholder involved, thus giving them a better sense of the role that they are taking into account as they cooperate with the operation of such system. Doing so shall increase the competence of the IT Infrastructure and would make healthcare operations much more complete in serving the needs of the public.

Robust infrastructure involving multidisciplinary teams

Relative cooperation between branched out institutions does require a definite capacity of the system to host multidisciplinary teams who are to access the system for reference and for function (Francis, 2006). Practically embracing the culture of cooperation among separate institutions would do well to support the ideal function of healthcare systems that is being reached by the said condition of development being imposed.

Conclusion

A working IT Infrastructure is not enough to support the current demands of the public from existing healthcare institutions that are able to mandate their role in the overall function of the healthcare industry in a modern society. Most often than not, IT operations are expected to provide a more competent foundation for public institutions to function properly. It is with these expectations that the creation and development of IT infrastructures specifically designed to aide healthcare operations towards heightened competence has been given way.

Today, the extensive use of EHR and EMR is only a few among the new practices and culture that the modern healthcare industry embraces. These adjustment and transformation of operation are designed to create a distinct change on how the needs of the public are practically responded to. Most likely, it is the desire of the healthcare administrators to be more effective and efficient in completing their tasks for the public that identifies the concept of development that healthcare IT infrastructures are taking into account accordingly.

In the coming years, more complex, yet more functional IT infrastructures are expected to spur out from the industry. In the aim of supporting the healthcare needs of the public, these programs are expected to make a definite impact on how social healthcare needs are served (Health Informatics, 2009). May the institutions be public or private in nature, healthcare stations [both large scale and small scale] are hoped to accept the challenge of functioning under a huge umbrella of a centralized IT infrastructure that would better allow them to access patient-information through an online secured network that would make it easier for them to retrieve data that is needed for the diagnosis and treatment of a particular patient under their care.

References

Wager, K.; Lee, F.; Glaser, J. (2009). Health Care Information Systems: A Practical Approach for Health Care Management (2nd ed.). Jossey-Bass. pp. 253–254.

Francis, Theo (December 28, 2006). “Spread of records stirs fears of privacy erosion“. The Wall Street Journal.

Health informatics – Guidance on the management of clinical risk relating to the deployment and use of health software (formerly ISO/TR 29322:2008(E)). DSCN18/2009, Examples of potential harm presented by health software, Annex A, p. 38 [6]