Introduction to Information Systems, Research Paper Example

The amount of data collection in healthcare is astounding.  Data is the raw and unorganized facts that need to be processed and analyzed.  Once the data is analyzed and processed it become usable, structured and gains meaning, which in turn becomes information (Rainer and Cegielski, 2010).  With exponential growth of data being collected and stored, the ability to take that data and make it usable information is degrading.  The accessibility and reliability, tenants to information management, is becoming key points of failure and with each passing year the data is becoming less and less usable.  The key issues with the overall data degradation issue in healthcare include; exponentially growing data, inability to increase infrastructure to store data, decreased capability to ensure performance of data retrieval and manipulation and a fixed long term budget all are parameters to the core issue.  In order to find a possible solution to the issue there is a need to look outside of the core scientific community and leverage the lessons learned from the corporate sector.  As businesses grow, their need for data has grown.  In order to limit overhead expenses, organizations have had to devise ways to eliminate cost, maintain productivity and retain capability for data processing.

Information systems are transforming business by transforming data into useful information for more accurate, reliable and expeditious business decisions.  The core of any business is dependent on how the decision makers take inputs from the business environment, calculate the data together and ultimately compute a business decision based on those inputs.  As businesses go from the antiquated legacy processes of manipulating data to collaborative and instant information utilizing information systems, businesses can adapt and overcome their environments to help facilitate a competitive advantage. These information systems help provide a closer relationship between the key business decisions and the data needed to take the right actions (Hayden, 2010).  The closer and quicker decision makers can interpret and act upon the data, the better chance they have in creating a gap between themselves and their competition.

References

Hayden, L. (2010). It security metrics. New York: McGraw Hill.

Rainer, R. K., & Cegielski, C. G. (2010). Introduction to information systems, enabling and transforming business. (3rd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.