Аustrаliа's hеаlth infоrmаtiоn systеm

Australia’s Health Information System
Name:
Institution
Introduction
A health information system can be termed as a combination of more than one resource to support and complement service delivery in the health sector. These resources may include, computer based devices, knowledge of using these devices and their application in medicine and biomedical applications. A health information system is used to increase accountability of resource allocation when it comes to service delivery and its application provides the most efficient way of measuring the health outcome of patients by implementing quality healthcare provision (AbouZahr, 2013). In a deeper analysis, it entails use of the information by the medical sector stakeholders in optimizing data acquisition, storage, editing, and referral of the said individuals.


Figure 1: Components of a Health information System
The Australian health information system also use others fields and professions in supporting the health care system. These fields include the computer science sector, information technology sector and other industry players in trying to ensure that patients have quality, efficient and relevant services offered to them by these institutions (Whittaker & Buttsworth, 2012). Therefore, this report shall take an analytical view of the current status of the Australian healthcare information system, the challenges facing it and the areas of improvement that are aimed at ensuring its main objectives and goals are adhered to.
Current Status of Australian Health information System
Data sharing
Data sharing is critical at this time and age and this should apply to the Australian Health Information System. However, the due to many underlying factors, the practice has not been integrated into the culture of the AHIS (Blobel, 2002). The stakeholders are not conversant with the benefits of sharing such information that include addition of significant value without any extra costs being inquired. The major problem is the independence that exists between public health institutions and private ones. It becomes difficult and tricky to have data sharing in such scenarios since most of the time private hospitals are not obliged to report to the Health ministry (He, 2012). It is even worse for information sharing in public-to-public facilities since this practice does not exist and the blame can be placed on poor and weak regulatory policies that should address such issues.
Privacy in AHIS
The other issue that derails implementation of data sharing is the concern by both citizens and various agencies on privacy (Yang, 2009). Most stakeholders are of the belief that if such information is shared, personal data on persons may be accessed by individuals for mischievous reasons like spying on social security numbers and tax returns of an individual. There have been reports of such confidential reports being at the hand of third parties, which does not play well for the health information system that Australia is so eager to fully implement. People have accused them of availing sensitive data about them like their sexual and reproductive to agencies that have no right to have this information (Friedman, et al. 2005).
Lack of good and effective legislations
Moreover, in Australia there is lack of good and effective legislations that govern the health information systems. Health institution are not mandated to collect, analyze, report or disseminate patients’ data and the effect of this practice is as explained in the previous paragraph (Borycki, 2011). The country is more aligned towards the set rules and regulation by international governing bodies on health issues that it is on its own needs and the needs of its citizens. While this is important, it becomes clear that Australia has not customized or self-tailored its own regulations that are best suited to tackle the need to do with information systems in its own way. With a customized health information system at least there is guarantee to satisfy niche needs of the country as opposed to having a blanket of policies that do not suite the country’s requirements and challenges.
Lack of standardized data
The next point that reflects the status of AHIS is lack of standardized data. The country has many international and non-government donors that sponsor and supplement health services delivery that are done by the government (Wickramasinghe, 2012). While this might be a good thing, the effects of the same are detrimental. Each agency and donor has their own standards and algorithms for collecting, analyzing, and storing data. A certain name in one organization may mean a totally different thing to the next e.g. the name Stakeholder may mean investors to donor A while the same may mean patients, management and all individuals who play a part in the Health information system to donor B (Takeda, 2010). This means that such discrepancies cannot allow for data sharing between the two. This lack of uniformity severely cripples any chance of one data being useful to the next user.
Lack of unique identifiers
Lack of unique identifiers is another issue that is evident in the AHIS. While some countries like the Unites States of America have unique keys i.e. the social security number assigned to all its citizens, Australia still has not implemented the same for all its population. While most of city dwellers and residents have unique identifiers assigned to them, those based in remote and rural areas are yet to have one (Soto et al. 2013). The Health information system is a database system that should contain records of thousands if not millions of people and with lack of unique identifiers, the integrity of this information is compromised. This is because while a person may be unique in term of his name and characteristics in one database, a similar description of another person may exist in another database of a different health information system (Greutter, 2002). Hence, the lack of a unique key renders data sharing useless.
Poor use of technology
Even if unique identifiers may be implemented, the poor use of technology in AHIS still limits the potential such a system can deliver. Most healthcare personnel only have basic skills when it comes to use of technical applications like the healthcare information system (Short & Palmer, 2000). As a result, there has been a continuous need of data management experts into medical institutions, which have integrated AHIS into their daily operations. However, because the data is more important to the medical profession than it is to the system administrator, there has been little improvement of service delivery. The major issue occurs since poor technological use has limited the amount of data that can be managed at a given time. In some hospitals, there has been delayed service delivery due to the challenges that technology has on non-technical hospital staff (Lewis et al. 2011). On the upside however, where the staff has been trained on the same, there is timely data availability for accurate decision-making and better patient information handling.
Data ownership
The other state where the AHIS has challenges is clarity of data ownership. Due to the presence of large international and non-governmental donors to the healthcare system, the independence of the country when it comes to data management is compromised. Most donors usually demand to have full access to the available health care data on patients before committing to funding certain initiatives. This has resulted to a fight of interest as to who controls what in terms of the health information system (Seberry & Naini, 2003). The government has become reluctant to implement fully the AHIS program because they feel that they are not in control. While it may be good for the government’s ego, the loser in all that are the patients who have to do by without efficient systems due to the bureaucracies that are at play.
Shortage of staff
Moreover, it is important noting that such systems have to be administered, controlled, and monitored by professional. The Australian Health Information System is a wide database system that is concerned with data of individuals with regard to their health issues. Hence, the requirement of database system administrators is paramount. Someone with the knowledge of optimizing, improving, and maintaining the system is a must. However, for the whole unit to work, it means that each medical facility that has been integrated into the Australian health information system has to have at least one employee who is conversant with database systems. The problem here is that in Australia, data management as a career is undervalued thus underfunded and the employees in such fields are underpaid (Perrin et al. 2001). There has been lack of commitment when it comes to improving the data management profession and as a result, there is inadequate human resource to administer in the said positions in the health information system. With lack of such employees comes disorganized data and information for the concerned medics to use in their diagnosis and other treatment related decisions.
Areas of Improvements in Australian Health Information System
Establishment of Independent health statistic units.
The first step in resolving the issue facing AHIS include establishment of independent health statistics unit. This is the best and practical way of solving issues to do with need for data standards. Evidently, there are various donors and non-governmental organizations that use different acronyms but by mapping out certain span of regions to have a common independent unit, the problem can be solved (Murray, 2009). The solution would involve structuring the area covered by each independent health statistics unit such that not one unit is overwhelmed while others are underused to ensure ...