Introduction
Electronic Health Records (EHR) and Health Information Exchange (HIE) are crucial in improving the quality of healthcare services offered to patients. Health information exchange is essential to health care providers. It provides them with important information for safe and efficient service delivery. Electronic Health Records are digital records of health information of individuals. At the same time, Health Information Exchange allows doctors, nurses, clinicians, and other authorized care providers to access such information. HIE and EHR happen in the broader environment called Health Information Technology (HIT) (Raghupathi & Raghupathi, 2013). The total of this is the provision of precise, quicker, and cheaper services, making work easier for health care providers. All this happens smoothly when all necessary patient data is easily available upon request.
Data Analytics and HIT
Data analytics is the first step in Health Information Technology. HIT has evolved over the years as individuals and entities seek improved health care. Data analytics is the foundation of this process because it allows for automation in the collection, processing, and analysis of complex health data into useful information for the industry. The health industry is no longer just focusing on delivering services to the masses; it is more about quality and user-oriented services. While previously the industry operated as a volume-based business, today it is more about value-added business, looking to maximize patients’ experience with personalized services. This transformation implies that doctors, physicians, and all related staff are under continuous pressure to offer the best value-added services to patients with better outcomes. The result has also affected the financial structure of the healthcare industry, where healthcare organizations compete with competitors by offering more valuable and affordable services to patients. (Raghupathi & Raghupathi, 2013). However, the benefits of analytics go further than patients. It relieves the government, insurers, and healthcare providers in the healthcare sector.
How does HIT Reduce Costs While Improving Quality?
An immediately visible benefit of HIT is care coordination. Health providers can quickly obtain information on a patient, especially in an emergency. Further, caregivers can easily update physicians on a patient’s progress. Again, physicians can teleconference with colleagues to quickly diffuse health complexities. Another benefit of HIT is the prediction and prevention of diseases and outbreaks. For example, in 2008, using behavioral factors, researchers observed that there are distinct similarities between the groupings of states by diseases and behaviors (Raghupathi & Raghupathi, 2013). Kentucky was in the top three states for three out of the four diseases of obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure and was rated highest for 28 occurrences of smoking and lack of exercise. HIT also improves customer care, availing providers with filtered information that enhances personalized treatment of patients. The authorized access and use of health records greatly help industry players to lower costs. Hospitals will avoid unnecessary assessments, smoothing the billing process and the collection of accounts due. Health insurers will avoid fraudulent claims prevalent in health insurance (Raghupathi & Raghupathi, 2013). Overall, HIT is a critical tool for the health industry in improving quality while lowering costs.
Conclusion
In conclusion, HIT is a crucial tool in improving the quality of health care services. It provides health care providers with ample information about a patient’s medical history, which helps avoid a misdiagnosis. Also, HIT can be used by medical researchers to predict and determine population health which is a crucial element of public health. Lastly, Health Information Technology has proved beneficial to the healthcare industry beyond patient diagnosis and treatment to aid in eradicating fraud in hospital finance departments.
Reference
Raghupathi, W., & Raghupathi, V. (2013). An overview of Health Analytics. Journal of Health & Medical Informatics, 04(03), 1–11. Web.