Health Information Technology

Introduction

The United States health care systems subjected to continuous growth and development. As we are living in the age of technology, the implementation of modern technology is an important innovation that is changing the current practice of the healthcare system. Health information technology is one of these innovations that are rapidly making its prominent place in the healthcare system.

This paper discusses the health information technology, by reviewing the key articles given on the Health Information Technology web portal for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Architecture of Health Information technology

Health informatics refers to the modern system which incorporates the integrated performance of computerized system, information science and the health care science. This system involves the advanced machinery to be utilized in storage, reproduction and retrieval of health care information. The tools of this technology are the computers, information and communication systems and clinical guidelines (Eysenbach, 2000)

With the increasing progression and modernization of the health care system, the health information technology has become a necessity. This information technology system compromises of a multifaceted set of criteria, modernized technologies, guided by the legal and ethical policies that determine the precise performance of the system. The infrastructure of this system can be given as follows

The health IT utilizes the information data collection system in the healthcare organizations for the accurate recording of the data. Within a healthcare entity, the patient undergoes several steps and performing data collection through multiple specialized systems performed. However, the final integration of this data is necessary (AHRQ, 2012). To fulfill this requirement, the establishment of healthcare repositories by the healthcare system is necessary. These clinical data repositories work by taking the data from all the specialized systems located in the hospital, and merging them into a single profile. This process is critical, and it requires efficient databases and services to carry out the entire process. Every hospital has its own detection software, and they might spot the information of a same patient in different manners.

The collection of data from different databases into the patient repositories follows pre-set “standards”. These criteria are the specialized set of policies that determines the design of information relocation, agreed upon by a majority of the healthcare system specialists. In order to follow these standards, the development of messaging standards and specialized coding systems evolved in the practice. However, this process did not solve the problem of interpreting the information using standards from the databases. The problem arose was that not all the senders and receivers implement the standards in simian manner. To overcome this problem, the solution found is the establishment of interface engines. Nevertheless, this whole process holds transparency to the user.

Innovative Approaches of the Health information technology

The health IT has provided the healthcare system with a number of innovative approaches and modernized processes that have a high impact on the quality of patient care and safety. Some of the innovations that hold key importance in the system, and implemented in the healthcare system on a comprehensive basis are:

Electronic ...