Expanding the Scope of Health Information Systems (original) (raw)
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Developing countries and the global network of donors, programs and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have agreed that health systems need to become stronger if gains in health are to be achieved and sustained. Existing data collection and use is fragmented, disease specific, inconsistent and often of poor quality. A major factor contributing to this current situation is that the burden of data collection falls to health workers and that this burden is excessive. What is needed is a national health information system that is capable of supporting day-to-day management, long-term planning, and policy development for the entire national health system. Front line health workers who bear the burden of data collection should benefit from the availability of information for decision making in a well designed health information system. A health information system is comprised of multiple and diverse functions and applying what has been learned from other sectors is valuable. One such practice developed over the past 20 years to guide planning, development and management of complex systems in all sectors including, government, commercial, and NGOs is the development of enterprise architecture. The enterprise architecture is the next level of elaboration of the HMN Framework where general lessons, standards, and processes can be aggregated and documented for knowledge sharing. A well thought-out and collaboratively supported architecture enables systems to be built and implemented using consistent standards for data collection, management, reporting and use. The components of the enterprise architecture will be adapted from or collaboratively generated with the global disease programs whose buy in and endorsement is crucial to its success. Investments in health information systems can be aligned and leveraged around such an architecture to build stronger core health information systems supporting better local health services management, health policy and ultimately stronger health systems.
Panel: From policy to practice: Achieving nation-wide information systems in healthcare
The underlying premise of the panel is that it requires a serious effort to define realistic transition strategies for achieving national programs for information systems (IS) in healthcare. The advancement of large-scale IS initiatives in the healthcare sector offers a number of opportunities in terms of improvements of quality in treatment and care, interoperability, as well as productivity at a lower cost. At the same time, however, policy-makers and practitioners face a number of challenges that relate not only to technical issues of interoperability, data security, and confidentiality but also to social, organizational, and regulatory elements. The panel "From Policy to Practice: Defining Realistic Transition Strategies for Achieving NationWide Information Systems in Healthcare" addresses the challenges of achieving national healthcare systems that are more prosperous, sustainable and serve all through the utilization of IS, with the aim of helping practitioners and decision-makers translate large-scale IS policies into practice. Based on experiences from five European countries, the panelists will present large-scale IS healthcare initiatives to engage a discussion. While the statements presented by the panelists mainly pertain to a healthcare context, we aspire to transform the discussion into a sustainable discourse that will serve the community of IS researchers and practitioners at large.
Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, 2013
Objectives: Summarize excellent current research in the field of Health Information Systems. Method: Synopsis of the articles selected for the IMIA Yearbook 2013. Results: Five papers from international peer reviewed journals have been selected for the section on health information systems. Conclusions: The selected articles illustrate current research regarding health information technology (IT) impacts and evaluation and the latest developments in health information exchange.
Health information systems challenges: the Heidelberg conference and the future
International Journal of Medical Informatics, 2003
Objectives: To present a summary of the state of the art in Health Information Systems (HIS), as discussed during the Heidelberg HIS Working Group Conference, and to examine possible strategies for continuous improvement of the field. Methods: The state of the art in HIS is briefly described, and the historical trends are examined that emerge from a review of the previous HIS Working Group conferences. To extrapolate from those trends and suggest possible new directions, we consider whether perceived difficulties in the diffusion of HIS systems are simply a product of technological factors, or whether fundamental social factors have been ignored. Results: The experience with HIS environments is 'reasonably good' but not excellent, and true HIS success stories are not common. One of the apparent difficulties is that the typical HIS does not regard communication among clinical users as its core mission, even though repeated studies of information needs and practice patterns show that communication is the leading cost in today's health care environment. It is suggested that progress in the HIS arena will benefit from increased emphasis on the social aspects of health care, and better integration of diverse data to promote the organizational communication and workflow. Improvements could also come from a change to a highly participatory and evolutionary software engineering process, focusing on communication behavior and co-operative work practices. Conclusions: Future HIS development should view provider-provider and provider-patient communication as a core function, and incorporate features such as seamless support and tracking of communication, automatic gathering and presentation of data from multiple sources, data collection in atomic units by the most qualified provider, and integrated management, resource utilization, and tracking. The steps towards HIS that support these features might be smaller than generally suspected, once the appropriate changes in the reference point have been made. #
Perspectives in Health Information Management Ahima American Health Information Management Association, 2005
Recently there has been increased focus on the need to modernize the healthcare information infrastructure in the United States.1–4 The U.S. healthcare industry is by far the largest in the world in both absolute dollars and in percentage of GDP (more than $1.5 trillion, or 15 percent of GDP). It is also fragmented and complex. These difficulties, coupled with an antiquated infrastructure for the collection of and access to medical data, lead to enormous inefficiencies and sources of error. Consumer, regulatory, and governmental pressure drive a growing consensus that the time has come to modernize the U.S. healthcare information infrastructure (HII). While such transformation may be disruptive in the short term, it will, in the future, significantly improve the quality, expediency, efficiency, and successful delivery of healthcare while decreasing costs to patients and payers and improving the overall experiences of consumers and providers. The launch of a national health infrastructure initiative in the United States in May 2004-with the goal of providing an electronic health record for every American within the next decade-will eventually transform the healthcare industry in general, just as information technology (IT) has transformed other industries in the past. The key to this successful outcome will be based on the way we apply IT to healthcare data and the services delivered through IT. This must be accomplished in a way that protects individuals and allows competition but gives caregivers reliable and efficient access to the data required to treat patients and to improve the practice of medical science.This paper describes key IT solutions and technologies that address the challenges of creating a nation-wide healthcare IT infrastructure. Furthermore we discuss the emergence of new electronic healthcare services and the current efforts of IBM Research, Software Group, and Healthcare Life Sciences to realize this new vision for healthcare.
Implementation of large-scale health information systems
Revista de Gestão
PurposeThe study aims to analyze the previous literature on government initiatives to implement health information systems (HISs).Design/methodology/approachProknow-C (Knowledge Development Process-Constructivist) was used in the selection of the literature and in the bibliometric and systematic analysis.FindingsThe research identified a portfolio composed of 33 articles aligned with the research theme and with scientific recognition, as well as periodicals, authors, papers and keywords that stood out the most. Amongst the government initiatives in the 24 identified countries, England has been the most studied nation, and there is a certain prominence of research arising from developed countries. Electronic health records (EHRs) have been the most explored technology. Efficiency and safety of health care delivery, integration of information and among health organizations, cost reduction and economicity are the most expected benefits from government programs. The difficulties found a...
Yearbook of medical informatics, 2011
To celebrate over 30 years of health information systems' (HIS) evolution by bringing together pioneers in the field, members of the next generation of leaders, and government officials from several developing nations in Africa to discuss the past, present, and future of HISs. Participants gathered in Le Franschhoek, South Africa for a 2 1/2 day working conference consisting of scientific presentations followed by several concurrent breakout sessions. A small writing group prepared draft statements representing their positions on various topics of discussion which were circulated and revised by the entire group. Many new tools, techniques and technologies were described and discussed in great detail. Interestingly, all of the key themes identified in the first HIS meeting held over 30 years ago are still of vital importance today: Patient Centered design, Clinical User Support, Real-time Education, Human-computer Factors and Measuring Clinical User Performance, Meaningful use. A...
Health information systems: international lessons
2001
At present Ireland lacks really effective and usable health information systems. The priorities listed in the draft 'Information for Action'report cannot be realised within the constraints of the existing systems. Our health information systems are not people centred; they do not facilitate assessment of quality; they make measurement of equity very hard; they do not support an adequate level of democratic or political accountability.
The Dynamics of a Global Health Information Systems Research and Implementation Project
Scandinavian Conference on Health Informatics - EHiN 2019, 2019
The Health Information Systems Programme (HISP) is a sustainable and scalable research project enabling and supporting health information systems implementation in more than 100 developing countries. In this paper, we present the historical roots, the status, and discuss the future of HISP and its software (DHIS2). We also reflect on factors contributing to the project's global success and find the principles of HISP organizing, DHIS2 software development and implementation in countries with a basis in open and participatory approaches as key. For the future, we discuss strategies to stabilize as well as grow the HISP and DHIS2 community into a sustainable ecosystem.