However, health informatics is the kind of application system normally used by most hospitals and clinics to deliver high quality and cost efficient healthcare service to the community. According to Bacon County Hospital press release (2002), the informatics system was implemented to make the delivery of medical services such as surgical treatment and other general treatment faster. In this paper, therefore we look into how the informatics systems/applications has evolved since it was implemented by the Bacon County Hospital; discuss the future trends for healthcare informatics and how these trends impact the healthcare delivery system.
Health information is a fundamental piece of data which represents a person, business, organization, or a community. This data is vital in monitoring and coordination of care for individuals and communities. It not only monitors and coordinates patient care, but reduces costly mistakes and prevent duplication of treatments as well as taking a pivotal role in preserving, securing, and protecting personal health information. Since, this information is extremely essential and sensitive, it must remain secure and safe to prevent frauds and cyber-attacks. First of all, this paper discusses vitality of the health information in regards to individuals, professionals, and organizations along with its benefits to improve overall quality of life. Secondly, it discusses the role of information technology in various aspects of the industry and the what the future holds within IT.
There is no doubt in that technology has multifaceted benefits but, at the same time, it has forced mankind to feel insecure. Every industry depends upon the data of the customers and the health industry is no more an exception here. The data of each patient is shared to facilitate health itself and for more rigorous and authentic research. Hence, protecting patient data is very important. It is so important that in 1996, the federal government introduced the Health Insurance
Some health institutions believe that all the patients have the powers to control the use of their records and before any file is accessed, the patient must be consulted by the personnel responsible. To others, however, some of the patients may not know the needs of the health industry, and therefore, at least 200 people can be allowed to access their records. According to this group, the only way to improve the patient’s privacy is by reducing the number of people who access the records. Thus, despite the fact that digital files save on cost and time, there is need to focus on some of the issues affecting the privacy of records in the health sector. Therefore, as much as the current law allows sharing of patient information during payments and treatment, caution must be taken to reduce data mining and marketing using the same
Removing any inaccurate information from patient records could take years and cost medical companies in all types of ways -- from administrative costs to malpractice lawsuits. High-profile breaches in personal medical data continue to increase and are often low-tech -- criminals grabbing an unguarded laptop, phishing scams or people getting access to hard copies of medical records. A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that more than 29 million breaches of information security in healthcare occurred between 2010 and 2013.[3] The recent hacking of major insurance companies Anthem and Premera Blue Cross generated record breaches that dwarfed the JAMA study figures by exposing more than 90 million records to criminals in just a few months.[4] The JAMA study also revealed that there have been more than 1,000 major breaches since 2010, and of these, one-third occurred in five populous states: Florida, California, New York, Texas and
Worldwide use of computer technology in medicine began in the early 1950s with the rise of the computers. In 1949, Gustav Wagner established the first professional organization for informatics in Germany. Medical informatics research units began to appear during the 1970s in Poland and in the U.S. Since then the development of high-quality health informatics research, education and infrastructure has been a goal of the U.S. and the European Union. (NYU graduate training program, 2010) Changes in the healthcare environment produced fundamental shifts in the delivery of healthcare. The altering landscape of healthcare is creating a huge demand for health data analytics. The growth and maturity of healthcare informatics over the past decade has been a prime catalyst in positioning the healthcare industry for the changes posed by reform measures. By understanding the process of analytics, clinical informatics specialists say healthcare providers have the insight necessary to make the process adjustments in the future.(Riskin, 2013)
Imagine, that you come back from a hard day’s work. You put on your favorite grey sweats with a cozy sweater. Soon after, you get a cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows. Then you lean back on the sofa, turn on the television and change the channel to the local news. Breaking news with bright red letters are plastered across the screen. The news anchor goes on explaining that an employee at the local hospital accidentally donated data of patients. This means that patient’s social security numbers, addresses, medical records, and other personal information, were given away without patients’ permission or consent. At that moment you realize that all your personal information is out there for everyone to see and use; and there is nothing you can do about it. The collection of personal information is called data mining, and is collected through large online databases. The real question is that data mining violating our privacy and rights? Why are companies still collecting our personal information without our consent and how can we protect ourselves from breaches? Data mining should be limited in the United States and needs to undergo more appropriate privacy and security policies to protect citizens privacy.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was created in 2009 to try and help multiple systems in the failing economy. The main goal of this Act is to promote economic recovery, spur technological advances in health and to stabilize state and local budget. The clinical business intelligence improves the patient care process, this data analytics provide the quality data which is timelier, and it also helps in billing and supports clinical
There is a constant change and upgrade in technology that is being used not only in the Healthcare setting but in everything we have and everywhere we go. Since healthcare is a big business, the healthcare fraud and abuse is becoming a national issue. We should be aware of it in order to avoid such abuses and fraud.
Privacy of health information has become an area of emphasis across the healthcare industry. It is important to understand what data is protected under federal regulations, how it can be shared, and how to prevent any accidental exposure of protected data. It is possible that data that should be protected can be exposed without anyone even realizing a violation has occurred. Exposure of protected healthcare data can result in medical identity theft and is therefore a very important and hot topic. The security and privacy of healthcare data is necessary to ensure consumer confidence in the healthcare industry and to prevent medical identity theft.
The rising costs of healthcare have increased the need for centralized and secure data for organizations to proactively control costs and to continue to improve the quality of care for patients. Many healthcare organizations have been working towards tackling and complying with this issue but have a variety of complex situations due to limited resources (both technology and financial), geographic limitations, and even political issues from organizational setups. Healthcare has become a competitive market as well which makes the limitations become more prevalent to those who can’t keep up.
This increase of sensitive data available online, commonly accessed through usernames and passwords, has produced a dramatic jump in healthcare information compromised by data breaches. In 2015, the IRTC reported that a staggering 66.7% of all records compromised in data breaches were in the healthcare industry; in 2014, this number was only 9.7%.
One of the top priorities of any practice is to maintain a healthy revenue cycle by processing and submit health insurance claims with speed and accuracy. But when daily claims management challenges like dealing with obsolete technology, scattered data sources and
The data collected in healthcare is very different when compared to the data compiled by a financial institution. In a financial institution, the information collected is private and sensitive information like healthcare, however, the information basic. Data collected and stored daily in healthcare can include financial information and private health information. In addition, if a patient has a healthcare device that transmits to the provider, there is a significant amount of data being collected and stored. Having a healthcare device adds to IT security risk for the provider and puts the patient at a privacy and security risk of their information intercepted.
As we know, for delivering good qualitative service in healthcare industry, data plays an important role. So it’s necessary to understand the fact that the big data must be used in a right way to make health service industries successful. For managing and analysing the big data it’s important to have a good knowledge about the healthcare data complexity, framework, technologies for “big data analytics in healthcare industries”.