Health Informatics
Module 2 - Case
Data and Information System Models
Assignment Overview
Healthcare information systems are complex and expensive. No one-size-fits-all system has yet emerged to solve the technological challenges of every healthcare institution. All existing systems have inherent limitations. The right balance of flexibility, speed, security and accessibility for a given healthcare organization should be determined before the purchase is made. A thorough understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of common system designs can help responsible executives make the best choices for their institution's needs. In this section, John Quinn offers an in-depth discuss of various information system considerations and challenges faced by healthcare information technology mangers.
Case Assignment
Read through Quinn's article "The Role of Information Management in Clinical Transformation". As you will see, there are many requirements, constraints and objectives to consider when selecting a healthcare information system. You will also see that integration and interoperability are common themes throughout his article. This underscores the importance of having a good understanding of internetworking concepts.
Once you have read through this article, write a scholarly essay addresses the following:
- Select two or three key design and selection considerations identified by Quinn that you believe are the most important.
- Explain why you think they are important and describe what technology components, systems and applications they might involve.
- At a high level, discuss how these components, systems and applications interact and identify what layer(s) of the OSI model they communicate.
Note: I'm not looking for a higly detailed technical analysis, and do not worry that your answers and descriptions may not be technically perfect or 100 percent correct. Instead, focus on providing answers and explanations that demonstrate your synthesis of the key concepts presented in background material and their connection to this case.
Source: Quinn, J. (2003). The Role of Information Management In Clinical Transformation. . Health Technology: Special Technology Overview, 1, 203-207.
Assignment Expectations
Use information from the modular background materials and case assignment narrative as well as any quality resources you can find via the online libraries or Internet.
LENGTH: 3-4 pages typed and double spaced using 12pt Times New Roman font and 1 inch page margins.
The following items will be assessed in particular:
- Description of various component associated with information systems.
- Abilty to explain the Open System Interconnect Reference Model as a framework for communications flow.
- Abity to apply internetworking concepts and models to healthcare information systems withing your analysis.
- Use and application of literature, expert opinion and references from your research to support your position, key points and explanations. Follow APA format for your paper including in-text citations and references.
Health Informatics
Name:
Institution:
Different health care organizations have different capacities and thus their needs are tailor made. This means that, where health care organizations choose to apply technology with respect to the Healthcare Information System, they have to consider factors that are unique to the organization. There is never a system that can be said to fit all the needs of the various organizations. The managers have to be well informed on the needs to be met and at the same time they have to consider the strengths and weaknesses of the information systems of choice and how fitting they are to the scenarios at hand, now and in the future. In one of his articles, John Quinn called ‘The Role of Information Management in Clinical Transformation’ (2003); he has gone into the details of the best practices that can help the managers make the right choice when that time comes.
At the core of the considerations and the design of the system, it is its ability to provide reliable services to all the users and the patients as well. Different staff at the various levels will have varying demands for the system, however, there are those that are common and bridge the gap between the usability of the system and the productivity with varying degree of interactions. This is the point which marks the reliability of the system, seeing that it can meet the needs of the staff and the patients without failure. If a hospital shifted from the paper charts to a computer managed system which crashes all the time and requires repairing and fixing for long hours of downtime, then the later is unreliable.
The response time is also crucial as it relates to the time the system takes to complete a task with relative ease. Different tasks will require varying amount processing power to complete. Even then, there are those tasks that are simple and they need to be done fast for the benefits of the staff and the patients. Picking a chart from the bed and reading is relatively easy and only takes a few seconds; this should also be the case with the system upgrade. It should not take much longer to retrieve this kind of information, after the upgrade. The care givers expect that when the system is automated, it should be relatively easier and faster to retrieve information and share, which is ideally one of the causes for most health information systems. This means that the time it takes the caregivers to interact with the system, should not compromise the time they want to be attending to the patients. This would ideally happen as they wait for the system to respond or as they go through various huddles that are required before interacting with the system.
Health care information is very sensitive and in the wrong hands, it could have catastrophic effects to the social and financial lives of the information owners. This is an aspect that comes down to the privacy policies of the hospitals or the health care facility in question. If the security of the data on the databases is accessed by a person that seeks to compromise the organization, the effects could be irreparable with respect to social and financial grounds. An effective security plan is crucial as it has to balance the aspect of data security and the access of the information. Data does not just have the risk of being ...