UM Writing The Healthcare Information System Discussion Responses

Peer# 1 

Part 1: Identify two issues related to health information and its management that you see as especially important — now and in the future.

I currently work within a large research, teaching, hospital and the leadership has been working to address an important health information sharing issue that AHIMA mentions on their website.  Until 2017/2018 hospitals did not have an automated way for a patients chart/records to be accessed at another hospital unless the information was faxed to them. A program called “Share Everywhere” was released in 2017, but was only usable through an EPIC systems database.  Share Everywhere allows a hospital that uses EPIC systems to view all of a patients records, add to the chart/records, view images taken at outside facilities etc. The problem is that currently only thirty-seven percent of hospitals in the United States use EPIC systems, so there is a major hole in electronic information sharing (EPIC, 2023).

Cerner Corporation, now called Oracle Health, is the second largest supplier of healthcare information technology services with twenty-five percent of healthcare systems using their software.  Their sharing information system uses CareTracker by Oracle, released in 2018/2019, allowing any healthcare facilities to access patient information if they use Oracle (Oracle Health, 2023).

The major discussions taking place now are how to unite these two software platforms, of course profitability is a driving factor with these two companies, and to encourage the other forty-five percent of healthcare systems to join an information sharing program.

This has become a high priority information systems project, COVID strongly highlighted why this integration needs to happen as soon as possible. People are traveling, moving, visiting other states more than ever and the need for immediate accessible patient records, especially during a pandemic or epidemic, is critical. 

Keeping patient information, research information, and healthcare records secure from outside hackers will always be of the highest priority and concern for all healthcare organizations.  Healthcare information security is almost daily making minor tweaks, and constantly doing updates to software to protect from external and internal cyber-attacks.  Cyber criminals tend to be quite smart and find any crack or loophole in software programs or databases. Over the last ten years medical devices that a patient wears, for example a pace maker or insulin pump, have become automated into the healthcare information systems databases and the outside connectivity also increased the attack surface of cyber criminals (Threatlocker, 2023). Technology systems teams must try to be a step or two ahead of criminals.  Having a patients information breeched can be devastating because everything from date of birth, social security number, address etc. can be found on their patient records. By failing to keep patient records private, a healthcare organization could face substantial penalties under HIPAA’s Privacy and Security Rules, as well as potential harm to its reputation within their community. Most importantly, patient safety and care delivery may also be jeopardized.

It does not matter which department or healthcare leadership role that I work within in the future both of these issues will always be of high importance and every changing.

Part 2: How does the health record promote quality patient care?

Electronic health records provide better and more detailed information about the patients that were not previously possible with paper charts. The patients demographics, contact information, and insurance coverage are all easily accessible, especially for patient billing to file with the bill payer. Primary care providers can acquire accurate analysis by viewing or printing graph values such as cholesterol levels, blood pressure, and weight by tracking all the changes over time. Electronic health records contain a wide range of patient-level variables such as diagnoses, demographics, vital signs, problem lists, medications, and laboratory data. It is a key tool that performs a variety of core functions such as health information capture, clinical decision support, health information exchange, patient support, electronic communication, orders and results management administrative processes, and population health reporting. The electronic medical record data will help primary care providers to develop a better care plan for chronic diseases, management, prevention, and screening. Patients may see multiple doctors, ranging from cardiologists to dermatologists. Every doctor a patient sees must have the same knowledge. Electronic health records ensure that every provider in the patient’s network of care is aware of which medications they are taking as well as any other treatment plans.

PEER# 2

Part 1:

Previous studies found in Family Medicine showed that patients were being overbilled majority of the time due to upcoding, which could potentially cause a lawsuit for the provider or the practice itself. Many physicians did not feel prepared or confident enough in the practices of billing which shows that education is insufficient. I think that there should be more curriculum on the billing practices for the physicians to avoid not feeling confident in their practices, therefore minimizing the risks of incidents and the physicians having more incite on how to properly code their visits.

Cybersecurity threats and challenges: There are some employees that are careless or negligent in their work or ignore certain policies which results in a risk for a health information breech. Another possible factor is Phishing in emails. If employees would take the time to double check patient information as well as patient contact information, I think the breech of PHI would decrease immensely. 

Part 2:

Having an EHR is a huge positive in the health care world. There are thousands of patients in just one facility, that would be nearly impossible to keep up with all of these patients medication lists, history, allergies and much more. With a health record, we have the ability to save patient updates in billing, medical history, or even their chief complaint at every visit they see a provider, making it easier for medical staff to keep up with everything the patient needs, or has already had. Without the health record system, doctors visits would take much more time due to having to look for patients past visits through a file cabinet full of hundreds of other patients, and then having to conduct a treatment plan for them, after looking at what was possibly done in the past that maybe did not work. That would busy up the physicians schedule, and decrease the amount of patients that they could see in that day, decreasing the company’s income. With the health record system, it’s so easy to pull up the patients previous treatments, history, and billing codes, making the patient feel more confident in the provider and the facility they are being treated at.