Principles for Transmitting Medical Information
Healthcare organizations are to share the information with other providers in various spheres, including for example lab results, X-rays, and other diagnostic information. Nowadays this process is usually done via electronic means, thus this system needs to be properly protected and should be organized in such a way that it could secure effective ways for sharing of the needed data along with absolute protection of the patient personal information from being accessed by any unauthorized persons or organizations. Along with numerous advantages this systems bring new challenged to the sphere of healthcare information processing. Principles for Transmitting Medical Information For example in case of sharing patient health care information it might turn out that various outside healthcare organizations use different electronic patient record systems, which could be either not accurate. More challenges a caused by the need to make the systems applicable in the conditions, dictated by local, state and Federal regulations, including ACA and HIPAA. Current trends in the sphere of protecting patient personal health information are adhered to the demands set by HIPAA. According to HIPAA guidelines electronic records systems are to be secure, they should utilize personal passwords, an audit trail and encryption. This is the responsibility of health care organizations to work out concrete security measures, which would be able to limit access to the information about certain users or groups of users. In addition, they are required to secure backup systems for electronic health records; otherwise there is a risk of losing of continuity in case of some force-majeure. For those individuals, who need to relocate, there is a need to offer the opportunity not only to store their personal health records, but also to get instant access to the data. Electronic health records systems have a lot of advantages and they provide additional possibilities for health care providers to evaluate the health conditions of the patients, trace the medical history and conduct the required tests. The greatest challenges, which are faced by health care providers, are related to the security aspects, as there is a number of potential threats, for example unauthorized access with the aim of either obtaining or even altering the stored information, sometimes hackers’ attacks result in destroying of the data. Currently the healthcare industry is in on the edge of serious transformation due to the involvement of advanced analytics and data technologies.
For the professionals, engaged in the sphere of health care, the collection, storage and analysis of data is of great importance for performing of their duties in the modern health care system. “The 2017 HIMSS Leadership and Workforce Survey found that 61 percent of vendors/consultants and 53 percent of hospitals had increased the size of their IT workforce in the last year.”( HIMSS Leadership and Workforce Survey, 2017, p. 1). The field of health information continues to develop and to grow, and correspondingly there is a need to develop new applications in order to increase the efficiency of the system and patients’ satisfaction. This is the reason, why it is so important for health information managers to remain up-to-date with the changes, which are taking place in the sphere and be ready to set the correct priorities. Currently, there are several important trends, which should be considered. First of all the issues of privacy and security remain actual.Principles for Transmitting Medical Information More and more information is stored online, as this brings a lot of positive changes for patient care management. However, at the same time the data becomes vulnerable towards attacks of hackers with the aim of stealing and selling of personal information from the electronic records. “In fact, according to TrapX Security, cyber attacks against healthcare institutions increased by 63 percent in 2016 as compared to 2015. The organization expects the trend to continue.” (Lozikoff, 2019, p.5). Such situation forces health care professionals become focus upon looking for the new strategies and technologies to secure privacy of the health data. This is one of the obligatory conditions for building trustworthy relationship with patients.
Information governance is also one of the serious challenges, which are met in the sphere of health information management. It is related first of all to implementation of the policies and structures for adequate handling of data assets by any organization. Deborah Green, American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) COO and executive vice president, said in an interview with Becker’s Health IT & CIO Review. “Beyond the need to harness, analyze and turn data and information into intelligence, there is also a need to control it.” (Big Data in Big Companies, 2019, p.2). Information governance helps to optimize data extraction in health care and at the same time contributes to mitigating of the risks, related to data security. Those healthcare organizations, which manage to establish information governance systems, have far better chances for higher quality and safety of health care, for cost saving and efficacy of operational efforts.
It was already mentioned that health care organizations needs to exchange information, in other words data needs to be accurately transported between stakeholders. This is possible only under the conditions that the systems of the various departments and healthcare organizations are able to interoperate. Interoperability is defined as the ability of the computer software and systems to communicate and exchange information in such a way that all the data is understood by the users. One provider is thus able to transmit the data to the other provider, including tests, medical histories, important images and so on. “The common thread in any interoperability use case is the patient. She is the one moving between specialists, being admitted to the hospital, and attempting to engage in her care,” wrote Niko Skievaski, cofounder of healthcare interoperability company Redox, in an article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “As such, true interoperability will not be achieved until her clinical data follows her effortlessly. This is patient-centered interoperability and it’s sadly missing from the typical discussion in our industry.” (Healthcare Information Management n.d.).Principles for Transmitting Medical Information
The speed of collecting, producing and analyzing of data continues to grow. It is important to note that in the sphere of healthcare raw data about patients has little meaning for them, as it is important to analyze the information and thus data analytics becomes one more challenge for the sphere of health care nowadays and for health information management in particular. HIM professionals are to determine the types of data, which are needed and could be useful for resolving of the challenges for each single patient. The basic form of data analytics is related to the strategies and processes, applied in order to research great amounts of information. Correct leverage of the provided information is beneficial for healthcare organizations and this explains the current increase of the use of data analytics.
On the basis of the mentioned challenges in the modern health care, it is necessary to list the new trends, understanding of which could be useful for creating of the optimal system in health care on the basis of involvement of information technology. The basic goal of the modern health care system is to secure optimal health care via meaningful use of health information technology. The major tasks, related to the meaningful use, are improvement of health care quality and coordination, reduction of healthcare costs and support of the reformed payment structures. “Health payors such as insurers and public health systems (e.g., Medicare and Medicaid) are in the early stages of shifting from fee-for-service compensation to value-based data-driven incentives that reward high quality, cost-effective patient care and demonstrate meaningful use of electronic health records. This approach requires significant improvements in reporting, claims processing, data management, and process automation.” (The Healthcare Imperative: Lowering Costs and Improving Outcomes: Workshop Series Summary, 2010, p. 3).Principles for Transmitting Medical Information
There is a connection between the value-based care and increased focus upon patient –centric care. Along with leveraging technology, it is important to align the process of health care with the patient outcomes. There are a lot of integral components of the health care system, which are to correlate with each other, they are doctors, hospitals, health insurance, and so on. All of them are equally important for patient satisfaction and positive outcomes of health care procedures. Thus, the aim is to distance gradually from the fee-for-service practice, when the payment is done to providers. “Fee-for-service has been a major roadblock in plans or desires to invest in digital solutions to, say, improve patient outcomes if the providers cannot recoup their investments.” (McDonald, 2017, p. 2).
Nowadays there are a lot of different devices, which are used for monitoring of the behavior of the patients, for example glucose monitors, fetal monitors, blood pressure controllers and so on. Upon making these measurements in all cases it is necessary to visit a physician, but there are smart monitoring devices, which were designed to communicate with other patient devices and partially replace physician intervention and nurse phone calls. There are smart devices for controlling of the process of regular taking of the medicines from specially designed smart dispenses. With the aim to reduce waste, abuse and fraud, the centers of healthcare started to use big data analytics. “The key to identifying fraud is the ability to store and go back in history to analyze large unstructured datasets of historical claims and to use machine learning algorithms to detect anomalies and patterns.” (McDonald, 2017, p. 3).Principles for Transmitting Medical Information This is a good option for the healthcare organizations to conduct analysis of patients records in long and short time periods, collect information about the healthcare services, received by the patients from different hospitals and find out if identical prescriptions were made for the same patients. In accordance with the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act meaningful use of Electronic Health Records (EHR) are promoted. EHR is beneficial for sharing of the patient information by clinicians. EHR helps to reduce costs, to analyze a variety of data of a patient, which is good for accurate diagnostics and matching treatment with outcomes with prediction of the potential risks. Predictive modeling allows collecting huge amounts of patient data for consequent analysis and making data-informed decisions. General important tendency in modern healthcare facilities is real-time monitoring of patients. A variety of monitors with different functions provide the opportunity to analyze patient data in real time and give timely alerts to the providers about changes in patient’s conditions. Control over real-time events could help physicians to take the life-saving decisions quicker.Overall, modern healthcare organization is to focus upon the compliance procedures and guidelines, which are established by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and should work out the corresponding approaches in order to support privacy and security of patients’ data. The programs, worked out for the organization, should comply with the Medicare and Medicaid HER Incentive Programs and adhere to the HIPAA Rules. Consideration of the current trends in the sphere of healthcare and strong connection between healthcare and innovative technologies bring new advances along with new challenges to healthcare organizations and managers. Timely application of the newly developed programs and corresponding education and training should be performed for the responsible staff members of the organization.Principles for Transmitting Medical Information