Summary: Align With Health Information Technology

The healthcare industry consists of many strengths and weaknesses during the improvement of patient safety, efficient operations, reduction of medical errors, and ensuring that they provide timely access to all patient information. This will have to still comply with all legal guidelines as they control costs and protect patient privacy. The adoption of advanced information technology is a popular strategy being used in the healthcare industry because it allows their weaknesses to be progressively diminished as they gain and use the opportunities necessary as an analytical tool. This would allow their capabilities to be further developed with the new technologies and processes used as they unify the adoption of IT standards. In order to stay competitive within the healthcare industry, then there must be specific actions and measures that must be taken to ensure a positive outcome. This includes external opportunities to increase the capability of the IT infrastructure in a national environment as the growth of industry standards are met in order to decrease the pressured threats of legal compliance through patient trust and the high cost of IT. The growing recognition of strategic leadership often leads to both improved financial stability and contact accessibility of the system. Some challenges that may occur within the healthcare system may cause issues in a hospital setting because of the centralized society of an organization. This is because of the different visions and

Healthcare and health information technology (health IT) are undergoing transformative change at an unprecedented pace. Strategic planning has become a major discussion point among CIOs, CTOs, CMIOs, and IT Directors. Whether it is implementing enterprise-wide electronic health record (EHR) systems, working toward compliance with the “meaningful use” EHR Incentive Program, enabling patients’ involvement through PHRs, transitioning to ICD-10, establishing insurance exchanges, becoming an accountable care organization, or even deploying a medical home, healthcare executives are confronted with a confluence of high-priority initiatives.

In 2009, the U.S. Government passed The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, to promote the adoption and meaningful use of health information technology (Mangalmurti, Murtagh and Mello 2060). The HITECH Act authorizes grants and incentives to promote the “meaningful use” of electronic health records (EHR) by providers (2060). The effect is a high commitment to a technology-led system reform, urging a renewed national commitment to building an information infrastructure to support health care delivery, consumer health, quality measurement and improvement, public accountability, clinical and health services research, and clinical

At the level of the external environment, health information management in itself, as well as the people employed in the adjacent departments, are continually impacted by new standards, regulations and initiatives. The scope of these standards, regulations and initiatives is usually that of increasing the efficiency and quality within the health care system, "o provide a secure, nationwide, interoperable health information infrastructure that will connect providers, consumers, and others involved in supporting health and healthcare" (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services).

There are many challenges that are defining the future strategic direction of health care such as information technology advancements, access to health care, maintaining a skilled workforce, proposed health care reform and legislation, and rising costs. I will look at these challenges and how an organization may adapt its direction and strategies in accordance with these challenges.

Oracle’s White Paper document (2011) suggests that, “The Health Information Technol-ogy for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) forces health care providers and their business

Healthcare information technology forms a pivotal part of today 's healthcare system. Improved quality of healthcare, patient safety, drastic reduction in medical errors and enhancement of care delivery is possible because of the induction of these solutions in the healthcare delivery environment. Today, healthcare IT solutions are enabling processes like planning, decision-making related to organizational development, strategic planning to drive growth, recruitment of competent personnel, managing employee benefits, payroll, intra-department communication, etc.

(ONC) is to coordinate “national efforts to implement and use the most advanced health information technology and the electronic exchange of health information … to improve health care” (Health and Human Services [HHS], n.d., website). However, sharing confidential information found in the electronic health record (EHR) for research and quality improvement potentiate legal, financial and ethical challenges.

Since the mid 1990’s, a predominant concept of healthcare is the iron triangle of care, consisting of three competing issues: quality, access, and cost. (Carroll, 2012). William Kissick, who introduced the model, suggested that if you improve one or two of these issues areas, it comes at the expense of the third. If quality of care is increased, it comes at the expense of access or through increased cost. If access to care is improved, it is at the expense of quality or increased cost. If an institution is successful at cost containment while providing care, it is at the expense of quality and/ or access. (Kissick., 1994, p.13). Despite this deeply ingrained concept, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) viewed the use of Health Information Technology (HIT) in the nation’s healthcare delivery as a resource to promote quality and access while potentially decreasing overall cost. (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2003). (Page 175 of Delivering Healthcare in America) In efforts to promote the use of HIT, AHRQ provided five goals of implementation that would best impact the healthcare provided throughout the federal and private healthcare systems. These goals, when applied to the federal

Some alcohol and drug abuse records were inadvertently left accessible via the internet. Fifty patients were affected.

The health care industry is one of the most dynamic and delicate industries in the U.S. having experienced healthy and substantial changes for the last thirty years most of which have aimed to improve health care management and services delivery to the patients. The changes have enabled the integration of technology into the industry such as in the area of informatics, science and research and payment services and clinical treatments. The health care sector has introduced various changes to address disease and health care management such as the Modernization Act of 2003, the Patient Protection Act and Affordable Act, which aim at improving health provision and most

The purpose of this project was to overview on the effects of health information technology integration (HIT). This report is mainly focused on understanding of health information technology, specifically on use of health information technology as significant use. Scope of this literature review, given the current state of health information functionality 8.

In most of the healthcare organizations, there is a position for the chief technology officer (CTO). The CTO leads the information technology architecture, including the strategies in health care organizations. Importantly, the CIO has a higher rank than the CTO. As such, when there are any IT-related initiatives and recommendations, the CTO reports them directly to the Senior Vice President and the Chief Information Officer. Because healthcare organizations are rapidly acquiring and implementing HITs in their organizations, the need to make clear the vision of the organization, in that context, is imperative. Therefore, the CTO comes in, develops and articulate the technology vision of

Health information technology (HIT) has become a growing phenomenon in the past sev-eral years. Healthcare providers, organizations, policymakers, and patients all share a similar vi-sion of a healthcare system powered by information technology. These visions stem from the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of 2009, which authorizes grants and incentives to promote the use of electronic health records (EHRs) by pro-viders. In the past couple of years, with the implementation of HIT and EHRs, the healthcare field has had an increasing amount of medical malpractice lawsuits. Unfortunately, with technol-ogy advancing more rapidly, causing medical professionals a difficult task in identifying and ad-dressing medico-legal issues before they occur. Therefore, healthcare teams are in need of con-sidering how to fix the underlying problems of HIT in order to ensure malpractice lawsuits do not continue to happen in practice.

The variation in information needs across any healthcare provider organization forces healthcare information technologies (HIT) platforms, systems, processes and procedures to align its design to support the unique information needs of each department and role. The greater this alignment of HIT systems and technologies to specific administrator, doctor, nurse and lab technician roles, the higher the level of overall systems performance and results attained (Agrawal, Grandison, Johnson, Kiernan, 2007). Just as an enterprise has strategic information needs that help to define the future direction of the business, healthcare provider organizations also have a comparable set of strategic information needs. The administrative roles in healthcare providers need to have a consolidated view of the organization from a cost, quality management, service level, patient recovery rate, patient satisfaction and profitability standpoint as well (Middleton, 2005). All of these factors are often gathered together in a dashboard that administrators often rely on to manage the core areas of their healthcare business (Leung, 2012). Administrator's information needs are also longer term in nature and more oriented towards the development of strategic initiatives that will last several years, requiring