Health Information System Paper

It can be very challenging for health care organizations to choose a Health Information System (HIS) that best fit their needs and adequately assist their workflow and standards which can result in lowered clinical mistakes and enhanced safe patient care. This paper will focus on the following features of HIS: the electronic medical records (EMRs), clinical decision support systems (CDSS), medication administration records (MARs), and the computerized provider order entry (CPOE).

The EMR, also known as the electronic health records (EHRs), are data processing machines that serves as a warehouse of patient information that can be retrieved by the clinicians, patients, insurance parties, drug companies, research registries, and the government.

Some of the information included in the EMR are the patient’s health status like the current illness and medical history, tests and medical care, patient’s demographics (personal information like birthday and social security number and contact information an advance directives), previous and current medications, and more. The EMR’s capability of saving money is related to its ability to accomplish a task with the least consumption of time and effort. Moreover, the EMR can also save money by making health conditions better through the avoidance and control of illnesses, and by decreasing mistakes in ordering medications (Otto & Nevo, 2013). Additionally, EMR allows a safe and convenient access to all pertinent records and promotes an efficient and effective healthcare operations through the improvement of productivity by preventing repetitions of tests and obtaining health information in a timely manner (Ajami & Arab-Chadegani, 2013). However, EMR implementation is a complex process that will require an adequate amount of resources like time, funds, and manpower. Therefore, choosing a

Furthermore, safeguarding the confidentiality is an essential standard of EMR, hence the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act was signed into law in 1996 that created a regulation for the electronic exchange, confidentiality, and protection of health records to ensure the safety of all patients’ information (Terry, 2015). Also, the definition in system’s data must be standardized to minimized errors and facilitate communication, and the quality control of the data must be established to ensure the system’s reliability. Lastly, all EMR developers must use a Health Level-7 (HL7) and a Digital Imaging and Communication in Medicine (DICOM) standard which is needed to ensure the system’s interoperability (Ngafeeson, 2014). Interoperability, is the EMRs’ capability to transfer, acquire, distribute and translate organized and systematized information that pertains to health (Halilovic & Terner, 2016). Hence, the HL7 is an essential standard of an information