HEALTH INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Health Information Systems

Health Information Systems

Introduction

Texas is the largest state east of the Mississippi River. Its rural communities are spread across five major geographic regions: the Blue Ridge Mountains in the northeast, the Ridge and Valley Province and the Cumberland Plateau in the northwest, the Piedmont in central Texas, and the Coastal Plain in the south. Texas has 159 counties; only Texas has a higher number of counties. Texas has more counties in persistent poverty than any other state.

A University of Texas faculty examine on persistent poverty issued in 2009 reported that “Texas ranks toward the bottom [of the United States] in terms of the overall medicinal of its citizens. . . . Of Texas's 159 counties, 108 counties were found to have persistent broke children's medicinal and toiling age adult health.” The examine also found that “more counties report[ed] broke medicinal . . . in 2000-05 than in 1992-97, signaling a diminish in the medicinal relative standing of Texasnsequated to the unwind of the U.S. through this period. (Hunter, 2010).

According to the Texas State Office of Rural Health's September 2007 State of Texas Rural Health Plan, in Texas's rural counties, “the story of rural medicinal has been one of high rates of death and illness, along with persistent poverty, low literacy, and inadequate medicinal care services. Rural communities endure a greater consignment of cardiovascular illness,cancer, diabetes, obesity, and infant conditions than their urban counterparts. . . . Rural Texasns are major, inferior, and sicker than their urban counterparts, which creates rural medicinal critically noteworthy to the state's overall health.”

Texas ranks ninth among the declares in population with the U.S. Census Bureau's 2009 population approximationof 9,829,211. According to the Texas 2030 Population Projections report by the Office of Planning and Budget, “between 2010 and 2030, the state's population is projected to grow by an other 4.6 million people.”

As the population enhances, the orders placed upon the already strained healthcare system increase. The Texas Board for Physician Workforce tells that Texas now ranks 37th in the nation in proportion of physicians to population. Thisshortage of medicinal skilled people, surrounding first care, sub-specialty medical care, and behavioral medicinal providers, in conjunction with the population growth, is start for great concern. “Rural counties typically have half as many physicians and dramatic shortages of nurses, therapists, and nutritionists, straining the size of the medicinal care delivery system to comethe residents that deficiency care.” (Kann, 2009)

To further clearly demonstrate the shortage facing rural communities, according to the September 2008 AARP Bulletin, the diagram of interns moving into first care has declined by half, and as one physician stated, “Every neighborhood in the countryside is one intern away from a crisis.” Findings from the National Association of Community Health Centersdivulge that one in five Americans has inadequate or no access to a first care physician.

Furthermore, the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration tells that “minorities contain 15 per 100 of the total rural population and minorities account assertion for 30 per 100 of the rural broke population. Minorities face a myriad ofdifficulties ranging from chronic poverty among population in the Southeast, to a scarcity of firm medical care for migrantpeople enlisted, to words surrounding openings faced by newcomers to this country.” According to 2009 U.S. Census Bureau knowledge, Texas's Hispanic population represents 8.3 per 100 and African Americans account assertion for about30 per 100 of the state's population. The racial or ethnic minority proportion of the population surpasses the national average. Addressing racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare is thus of best importance.

To give a final case of the distributes facing the broke and underserved, the National Women's Law Center Health Care Report Card messages that “the scarcity of obtainable ...