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Health Information Technology And The Health Care Industry Essay

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Health information technology, also known as H.I.T, is an area of IT that involves the development and maintenance of information for the health care industry. This technology allows for healthcare information systems to be automated and interoperable, which leads to improved medical care, lower costs and increased efficiency. Some H.I.T. professions include: clinical data analyst, CMIO and nursing informaticist. A clinical data analyst develops, designs and manages data tracking systems and evaluates the data results from clinical trials. A CMIO, or chief medical informatics officer, is a health care executive who is responsible to bridge the gap between medical and IT departments at a health care organization. Nursing informaticists is a profession which integrates nursing science with informational management. These professions are becoming more in demand because of the national push for advanced healthcare technology. On February 17, 2009, President Barack Obama had signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) which included the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act. His goal was for the United States to adopt technology so it would help the nation improve its quality of health care and lower its cost. Under the HITECH Act, the federal government would provide 14 to 30 billion dollars over ten years in incentives to hospitals and health care professionals who used Health IT, otherwise known as HIT. Health IT uses

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