Health Information Technology (HIT, HMIS, HIMS)

Health Information Systems

Types

Influence on health care clinical outcomes and organizational process improvement.

Challenges

Managerial

Administrative

1. Electronic Health Records (EHR)

Previously, doctors had to manually record patients’ information on paper.

Doctors can now electronically record their patients' information, access it easily, share data across departments for quick and accurate treatment.

It streamlines the workflow of the clinicians.

It reduces the cost by facilitating long-term storage, file maintenance and forms, and storing lab test duplicates.

Improves the overall clinical and financial productivity by; reducing the time from service time to billing, keeping track of patients' appointments, among others.

Training- system users need proper training, which might be time-consuming and expensive.

Data migration- moving from a paper-based system can lead to data loss.

Cost- for an effective system, many resources are used, which could challenge some healthcare providers.

Preparation- for a facility to make informed decisions, stakeholders have to share the same views, and incorporation of an electronic system could face different views from the shareholders.

Interoperability as the electronic system complements other systems and hence the need to communicate with other IT systems.

2. E-prescribing software

Helps doctors generate prescriptions electronically.

Prescriptions are sent directly to the pharmacy so the supplements can be prepared before the patient gets there, reducing the time a patient has to wait for the prescriptions.

Reduces the use of handwritten notes and prevents prescription mix-ups. It also prevents misplacement of prescriptions.

Quick and easy access to a patient's medical history.

Training the users can be time-consuming and cost-ineffective.

Familiarity with the system- familiarizing with the system could challenge new users.

Interoperability, that is, the ability of the system to communicate with other systems.

Integrating a new system is expensive as it requires many resources to work effectively.

Professional maintenance needs skilled manpower, which is expensive to hire.

3. Master patient index

It integrates patients' records across multiple databases.

Reduces duplication of patient information and inaccuracy, leading to wrongful treatments.

Patient records are sometimes inaccurate due to frequently changing demographic data and a lack of data standardization.

Interoperability as most hospital systems cannot effectively communicate.

Revenue loss as the system faces the challenge of data duplication, causing takebacks by insurance companies (Lintz, 2020).

4. Patients’ portal

Allows patients to easily access their medical history, previous treatments and medications taken.

It also allows patients to book appointments and make online payments.

Some allow patients’ interaction with their physicians hence, avoiding long queues and waiting time.

Patients are unwilling to use complex systems.

Patient's illiteracy on health. Most patients will not understand the medical terms used in their files.

Providers are not promoting the use of this system as they are not giving testimonies on its effectiveness.

5. Medical billing software

It automatically generates medical bills and manages the entire workflow.

It also takes care of insurance claims and verification, payment tracking, and processing.

Sends alerts for late-payments and pending payments by the hospital.

Generally, it ensures that all necessary payments by the hospital and to the hospital are tracked and processed.

Integration with Electronic Health Record and practice management software. The medical billing software has to communicate with other EHR systems.

Deploying cost-effective software and maintaining it is challenging.

High cost of installation and maintenance.

Loss of data in case of system breakdown.

Similarities

Differences

They both help in decision-making. HMIS is used to make decisions regarding the healthcare facilities, and HIMS is used to decide the type of care needed by a particular patient.

The health care administrators mainly use HMIS to improve the services offered, while clinicians mainly use HIMS to administer proper care to their patients and decide on the type of medication needed.

They both involve data collection, analysis, and interpretation.

Data collected for the HMIS is based on patients' perception of services offered, while the data collected for HIMS is based on the patients' personal information such as; medical history, previous treatments, medications offered previously, among others.

They both aim at improving the services provided in healthcare facilities.

HMIS improves the overall services making the experience better for the employees and the public, while HIMS improves the services offered to individual patients as the system generates the best care plan for different conditions and collects medication.

They both analyze the performance in the healthcare facility.

HMIS mainly involves reporting on practice performance, analyzing clinical trends and resolving issues within the practitioners while HIMS guides and enables the performance of the patient care process.

They both reduce the workload and make the decision process fast and easier.

HMIS makes decision-making easier for the administrators, while HIMS makes decision-making easier and faster for the clinicians ensuring a smooth workflow.