Health Information Technology

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Health Information Technology

Healthcare information technology is on the rise and indeed is a long leap in the healthcare industry. The main aim of HIT is to improve the performance of delivered services, enhance health care quality and efficiency, and involve patients as effectual partners in their own health safety. To achieve this goal, innovative ways like collaborative data visualization methods, wellness trend predictions, risk estimation, proactive activity status monitoring, and knowledge of complex disease indicators are incorporated into the function abilities of the healthcare system. This enhances precision in quality of care and improve quality affordable healthcare.

While the assumption of HIT is a laudable move Julian Wiener unravels the dark side unabated side that looms this assimilation. She portrays implementation failure as the greatest threat in this innovative advancement and portrays the loopholes in it that should be addressed for quality assurance. Implementation failure is the failure to deliver a program as intended resulting to failure to achieve the intended intervention effects and advance intervention effects due to lack of acceptance. This is fetal to patient safety and may lead to harm and may frustrate and demoralize the staff that use this integrated.

Therefore, to avoid negative consequences of implementation failure, such as increased mortality rates, the HIT implementation should go beyond standardization to the state of high reliability. High reliability focuses on safety as the key aspect rather than performance. Weinert thus proposes the use of implementation science and more research to guide the development, implementation and evaluation of HIT into the healthcare system. This opinion is vital in the realization of improved and innovative ways in the delivery of quality healthcare.

References

Understanding health information technologies as complex interventions with the need for thorough implementation and monitoring to sustain patient safety. (n.d.). Frontiers. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fict.2019.00009/full

Health information technology provides the infrastructure for health information management. The health care industry is evolving at a very high rate requiring professional skills especially in the information technology. Health information management professionals need to have the relevant knowledge in computerised management systems to handle health records. Health care givers are facing many challenges regarding technology such as shortage of health information technology workers and competition for IT workers with the other sectors.

The large shortage of health information technology (HIT) employees is evident in the health centres and facilities since the industry started the implementation of electronic records. The 2008 bureau of labour pointed out that the by 2018, health facilities will require an aIDition of 35,000 workers. In America, there is a shortage of 50,000 HIT workers requires in the next five years according to the American Medical Informatics Association. There is the need to train the HIT workers to deal with the data entry standards and the new coding methods in aIDition to the online insurance requirements. In the rural areas, the case is worse as the adoption of the health information technology and staff training due to the high costs of implementation. A number of the medical staff lack experiences in the project management skills and the health care processes. The frequent training changes since technology changes rapidly and also due to inadequate sustainability plans. The cost of hiring IT workers is expensive making it challenging for all the health facilities to employ new staff especially replacement due to attrition.

The other issue experienced by the Health Management System is competition for IT workers in the other industries. All sectors of the economy are recruiting Information Technologists as they try to digitalize their industries. The candidates graduating from colleges and technical institutions offering IT training are not enough for the entire market. As a result, some of the industries such as health are understaffed. Some government and public hospitals do not pay well as compared to the private sector, which makes most of the IT specialists prefer working in the private industry as opposed to the public health facilities. The terms and conditions of employment are also good in the private sector leading to the exodus of IT staff from the health facilities to the other employers.

My future career plans after completing my study program will be to set up an IT Training Centre especially for fresh graduates and new employees to enable them acquire skills to handle any IT information. The main areas of interest will be to train employees to manage databases containing the list of their company staff and any other assets. I intend to save enough money for the capital to buy a few computers, a printer and some training manuals. I will also train some of the employees in their working centres in the evenings especially for those who will not make it for the normal training classes. Due to the high demand for the IT skills by various employers, I expect to three sessions each going for two hours for the regular trainees and a one-hour session with some employees at their workplace. I intend to run the classes from 8amto 5pm with a lunch break of 2 hours from 1 noon to pm. I expect to earn enough income from the business as there are very many employees requiring constant training in IT due to the constant changing technology.