Health Care Standard Development Paper

Latour, Kathleen and Eichenwald-Maki, eds. (2009). HI300: Information Technology & Systems for Healthcare. Chicago: American Health Information Management Association

Healthcare systems are highly complex, fragmented, and use multiple information technology systems and vendors who incorporate different standards resulting in inefficiency, waste, and medical errors (Healthinformatics, 2016). A patient 's medical information often gets trapped in silos, which prevents information from being shared with members of the healthcare community (Healthinformatics, 2016). With increasing healthcare costs, a system needed to be created that would lead to the development and nationwide implementation of an interoperable health information technology system to improve the quality and efficiency of healthcare. Introducing the National Health Information Network (NHIN), this organization can be defined as a set of

The health care sector is impacted by numerous changes and challenges, such as increasing need for health care provision, changing demands from patients or rapidly evolving technologies. In the context of evolving technologies, the developments occur not only in the actual provision of the medical act, but also at the level of the complementary operations, such as health care information management.

The principal utilization of health informatics began in the 1950s with dental information gathered by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Utilization accelerated in subsequent decades which gave a standard programming language to clinical applications. Today, the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) oversees member organizations involved in health informatics worldwide. (Rouse, 2010). The potential for health IT to enhance the safety of health care delivery has been regarded for quite a long time. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act,

The UMUC Family clinic will transmit data via the Epic EHR system utilizing standards created by NCPDP (National Council for Prescription Drug Programs). NCPDP standards have helped to streamline the pharmacy industry, and because of this they have been able to save saving billions of dollars in health system costs while also increasing patient safety and quality of care. Many of the standards created have been named in federal legislation, including HIPAA, MMA (Medicare Modernization Act),HITECH and Meaningful Use (MU). All of these standards are necessary to ensure standardization of the data being transmitted As the need for new standards arise, current standards are updated, enhanced as well as new standards are created. Below is a current list of standards. As needs are identified, we update and enhance standards or create new ones. The current list of standards includes the following:

Emergency department’s health care information exchange was a proven factor in the Hawthorne effect. “The health care information exchange is a new type of electronic medical record that enables appropriate information sharing between caregivers at multiple health care facilities within a given region”( The Journal of Emergency Medicine, 2014). This system was able to survey patients who go to different medical facilities for treatment and medications. Patients who answered the survey were very truthful with their answers because of fear of being monitored. It saved medical providers time, cost effective and they were able to treat patients accordingly. Their response lead to quality care improvement across the board in treating patients

Electronic Health Record (EHR) standards refer to the agreed format that is applied to support the definition, use and exchange of data that is related to all the aspects of Health care Information and Technology (HIT). The standards should ensure that there is accurate, comprehensive and secure health information of an individual patient in digital format. Being HIT building blocks, they should provide a common framework of promoting uniformity in defining and identifying the components of a health system. The standards should provide consistent collection and exchange of patient’s information, enhance data quality and ensure reduction of medical errors. Some of the standards include: HL7 EHR Functional Model, CCHIT certification criteria and incentive programs (Amatayakul & American Health

Interoperability is often a word frequently used as a goal to strive for when improving healthcare in the United States. Encouraging the utilization of health information exchange has been cited as a potential way to improve efficiency, increase safety, and enhance quality of care. There are numerous examples of how linking information between multiple data sources leads to a non-trivial task. When two operations are collecting the same data, but are recording information in different formats, it can be nearly impossible to bridge the information between those systems. Standards are important because they can facilitate mutual understanding during in regards to communication and health measures in the context of population health.

The finest healthcare organizations cooperate a combination of technology and training to accomplish their healthcare guidelines and policies with procedures. Technology solutions turn into serious enablers to smooth this method. This approach can aid in offering a structured outline for informing, approving, and collaborating to the establishment, as well as, safeguarding that older guidelines are accurately filed and not scattered in a manner that can result in a patient not receiving proper care within a proper timeframe.

Over the past several decades, health care and information technology have undergone a period of dramatic change caused by a multitude of pressures and opportunities, many of which continue to persist and evolve. As we have moved into globalization of communication, technology, and information, Health Information Systems need to reflect what is happening to ensure optimal use of clinical information.

Currently Health Care in the United States is going through a lot of changes and controversies. With a new presidency in the white house that wants to replace the Affordable Care act and eliminate it the future is very uncertain (Boerner, 2017). People are either against this decision that can dramatically change the whole market place including Medicaid and Medicare or they are in favor. Reversing the ACA will reduce increase the number of uninsured patients in the country and this means that even more people will go to an emergency room to get treated and they won’t have insurance making it an increase in uncompensated care in hospitals. The contemporary issue that health care is experiencing today is the payment rates. Americans all

The Health Level Seven (HL7) organization is a global American National Standards Institute (ANSI) accredited organization dedicated to standards development. At quarterly meetings, volunteers from around the world gather to create and improve documentation that outlines how clinical information will be shared between disparate healthcare provider applications. When developing healthcare application interfaces to exchange patient data, HL7 standards are the go-to specifications to ensure that exchange. “HL7 empowers global health data interoperability by developing standards and enabling their adoption and implementation”, is the HL7 International organization’s mission statement according to their website (n.d.). “Level seven” is a reference

The used of standards is essential for accurate communication. In healthcare, without standards to communication, it can be dangerous to patients and the community. As clinician’s standard is necessary for everyday work. Standard is also necessary for documentation and the use of equipment. For example, if a nurse needed an intravenous pump for patient care and does not remember the standard and terminology for ordering the equipment. It would be difficult for the nurse as well as it would cause a delay in patient care. Standards help in the adoption of an interoperable electronic health record because it enhances standard to communications, standard to data as well as important information in healthcare. For instance, the use of standard communication and technology could aid in the detection of epidemics and serious drug side effects as well as the contribution to errors in patients care. (Sewell, 2016, p. 226). Standard are develop and adopted to

Healthcare organizations have traditionally attempted overcome interoperability barriers by using interfaces and health information exchanges (HIE). Unfortunately, according to Green (2015, para. 3), the use of interfaces and HIE will never enable true interoperability. Nevertheless, when using interfaces and HIE it will be necessary to use international HMIS standards. HMIS standards facilitates wide-spread compatibility, which is currently the best alternative for interoperability.

Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium (CDISC), a multidisciplinary non-profit organization, who has developed standards to support the acquisition, exchange, submission, and archival of clinical research data and metadata. Metadata is the data of the data entered. This includes data about the individual who made the entry or a change in the clinical data, the date and time of entry/change and details of the changes that have been made. Among the standards, two important ones are the Study Data Tabulation Model Implementation Guide for Human Clinical Trials (SDTMIG) and the Clinical Data Acquisition Standards Harmonization (CDASH) standards. The SDTMIG standard describes the details of the model