Summary: Innovative Health Information Technology

The purpose of this article is to examine an innovative health information technology based approach that is tailored to educate families about pediatric obesity and the associated health behaviors. It discusses the importance of advancing and improving health by utilizing innovative methods, such as health information technology (HIT). HIT systems are technology-based structures that allow access and exchange of information, computerization and improvement of decision making, and facilitation of behavior modifications to encourage healthier lifestyles.

Preventing and controlling childhood obesity will require multifaceted and community-wide programs and policies, with parents having a critical role to play. Successful intervention efforts must involve and work directly with parents from the earliest stages of child development to support healthful practices both in and outside of the home. (ERIC 2006).

In the United States alone children’s health is rapidly deteriorating. Since the early 1980’s childhood obesity in America has skyrocketed, leaving overweight children in danger. While obesity is defined as the condition of being very fat or overweight. One third of children “qualify as obese” (Davies), and meet the criteria to be labeled as “overweight as a result of poor eating habits, and a minimal amount of physical exercise. However, the lack of knowledge parents possess surrounding childhood obesity is determent to youngster future. When dealing with such an austere problem as obesity, parents should become more knowledgeable, supportive, and increase family activities to diminish childhood obesity.

List at least five of the ways you see physicians employing meaningful use in their practices

Article was written by people with extensive experience in health care, pediatrics, and public health. Jessica Anker, Lisa Kern, Erica Abramson, and Rainu Kaushal, all of them are members of Weil corner Medical College and Health Information Technology Evaluation Collaborative. The intended audience is members of health care system, health care providers, and professionals that are involved in patient care. This article discusses how health information technology (HIT) together with organizational structure and clinician involvement can improve care and safety of our patients. I think that this article is important for nursing practice, because it shows that HIT alone cannot improve quality care, but together with work of clinicians and communication

Meaningful Use is a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) program that awards incentives to eligible professionals (EP) and hospitals for using electronic health records (EHR) to improve patient care. This paper will provide an overview of the core criteria providers must follow to effectively use the EHR to qualify for the incentives and avoid penalties. The Meaningful Use criteria is implemented in three stages over five years to improve healthcare outcomes. This paper also explores the implementation of meaningful use in health information and how it has directly affected nursing, the nation’s public health, patient outcomes, and population health. Benefits of EMRs are improved patient care and coordination, quality of care and patient safety, improved efficiency and productivity, and financial savings.

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

In the last decade of USA medical history there have been little to no change in medical errors in regards to improvement of care. Meaningful Use, Electronic Health Records and Health Information Technology are practices and programs that can be possible solutions for this issue. The goals of meaningful use include improving quality, safety, efficiency, and to reduce health disparities, improve care coordination and ensure adequate privacy and security of personal health information (Hoyt,2014). With meaningful use, there are three stages: stage one begins the process of capturing date and sharing the information. Stage two is advancing the data processing and sharing and building off of the first stage. Stage three is the examination of the outcomes. Meaningful Use is defined under the Center of Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) and is essentially an incentive program through the government to create a health system that is run electronically and provides higher quality of care through technology. Since the goal is to create safer and higher quality through HIT by providing an incentive for EP’s to further develop their use of the technology there must be a time line in place in order to know whether the Ep’s hitting the requirements. This year, 2014, is originally a major year for Meaningful Use however, with changes in the time line, the cost of HIT, and the increasing of objectives can lead to major complications in the initial timeline created.

Childhood obesity is a complicated interplay of individual factors, familial determinants, and social constructs, and is largely under-counseled in healthcare arena.The long term effects of childhood obesity are grave including cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, obstructive sleep apnea and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Emotional consequences include bullying, social isolation and decline in school performance. Childhood obesity results from an imbalance between caloric intake and expenditure. School children have limited knowledge about healthy nutrition and lifestyle, and improving knowledge can directly influence their decision making capacity and improve outcomes. Our primary aim is to determine baseline knowledge of school children residing in Olmsted county regarding healthy nutrition, physical activity, screen time and assess disparities in knowledge based on age, sex, ethnicity, socioeconomic status and parental education level. Our secondary aim is to design and implement an educational program targeting school children and teachers and to assess post-intervention improvement in knowledge at 6

The proposed intervention to help combat childhood obesity in low-income families will be an interactive nutrition education program for both the children and their families. This program will be needed in rural, low income areas, that otherwise would not have access to this information. Patient education is of the utmost importance when combatting the development of chronic illnesses, especially one as prevalent as obesity is the United States. A health improvement plan must include realistic interventions that are appropriate for the target population.

The epidemic of obesity has been a serious public health concern in the United States. The rapid increase in the prevalence of this epidemic has shown to be higher among ethnic groups (Klohe, 2004). In addition, those of lower socioeconomic status are 50% more likely to be obese than those from higher education/income backgrounds (U.S. Department of Heath and Human Services, 2001). For children, obesity can lead to serious health outcomes such as asthma, insulin resistance, orthopedic abnormalities, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and sleep apnea (American Obesity Association, 2002). For example, almost 60% of overweight children aged 5-10 already have encountered one cardiovascular risk factor and approximately 18% have had two or more (Freedman et al., 1999). Intervening early to encourage proper food choices is critical because once poor dietary habits are established; they can be hard to change. A big tie to obesity can be related to mother and child relationship (Melgar-Quinonez et al. 2004). Studies have shown that a family based approach to changing life style, diet, and physical activity is critical for the prevention of a child being obese. For these reasons, having a program that manages obese mothers to encourage physical activity and dietary modification is critical to prevent cases of the obesity epidemic for their children.

This collection of articles spans the vast and complicated topic of understanding the high cost of healthcare in the United States. Included are articles that come from various disciplinary backgrounds and perspectives on the topic. By examining this topic from a multifocal point of view, complex nature of the reasons behind the ever-increasing cost of healthcare. Medical professionals, economists, religious leaders, and educators, contribute a unique perspective to this topic. By better understanding this topic and the

It has been 19 years since congress enacted the Healthcare Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). “Initially, HIPAA was about health information portability…”(Pyrillis, 2015, p. 15). People with medical conditions were no longer locked into a job over the fear of losing healthcare coverage (Conn, 2011, p. 12). Since then the landscape of healthcare information protection has changed dramatically. The evolution of healthcare technology has brought many questions and concerns about our nation’s ability to protect patient healthcare information. “Nothing demonstrates that change more clearly than the issuance of HIPAA’s privacy and security regulations” (Solove, 2013, p. 2). Following much discussion and planning regarding details

Parents want to help their children avoid obesity but feel constrained in their ability to take action. Families face several barriers to healthy lifestyles at home, in schools, and throughout their communities. Majority are not aware of additional intervention programs at schools or are embarrassed to ask for help.

Lindsey, I understand that it is a real challenge for you, to work in an environment where there are multiple documentation systems. I agree with you in that if there is a unified system in documentation throughout the organization, it could improve the communication among all the departments. Moreover, it could increase the efficiency and safety of care as well as decrease many errors. The electronic health record (EHR) enables a seamless flow of health information about the patient (Government Health Information Technology, 2015). It helps to take the maximum advantage of the advanced technology if used properly in the patient care delivery. By using a unified system, throughout the organization, it is possible to make the information available