Competiveness and Performance Effectiveness for Health Care IT Systems

Competitiveness and Performance Effectiveness for Health Care IT Systems
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Introduction
The healthcare system in the U.S. suffers from nursing shortage, and healthcare costs are high. The performance of a healthcare system should ideally improve the quality of care, but the burden of high costs makes this unlikely. Healthcare IT systems have the potential to cut costs and improve efficiency in the healthcare sector, highlighting the need for better healthcare systems. Adoption of IT in healthcare can also improve patient outcome as well as enhance exchange of information among medical practitioners. Nonetheless, there is a need to focus more on IT security in order to reduce the risk of data breach, while also improving integrity of information systems. This paper touches on the responsibilities and characteristics of Chief Information officer, Chief Technology officer, the emerging technologies that may improve health systems. It will also highlight on methods to improve data security as well as best practices for effective IT alignment and strategic planning initiatives.
Responsibilities and key characteristics Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Chief Technology Officer (CTO)
The role of the Chief Information Officer in the healthcare organizations has evolved over time. The CIO is one of the executives charged with leading health organizations in adopting and applying information technology in advancing the organization’s strategies, which is a vital aspect of IT assets, and the CIO is increasingly playing a more prominent role in organizational strategic planning (Wager et al., 2013). Essentially, this is related to the use of strategic thinking and strategy formation skills besides IT responsibilities. Furthermore, they ensure that IT asset is efficient and effective for purposes of meeting the organization’s goals. Hence, it is critical for the CIO to be an effective leader, recruiter while also influencing recruitment of personnel with superior IT talent.
The CIO plays a critical role in an organization by taking full responsibility for information technology functions. Through coordination IT functions, the CIO helps in the maintenance of data processing, office automation as well as network administration. Furthermore, the CIO is tasked with administrative issues in healthcare Information technology, and this allows them to prepare management reports. In any case, the CIO needs to communicate with the senior management about IT investments and how they impact operations in healthcare, and hence they have to support the need for investing in Information Technology (Wager et al., 2013). The information Technology budget should be justifiable, and the CIO monitors expenditures related to IT and budget adjustments while assessing and determining impact on the environment.
The role of the Chief Technology Officer is related to that of the CIO, but the CTO oversees the reliability of health management information systems. Essentially, the CTO ensures that an organization’s information system is reliable and accurate in order to improve efficiency end effectiveness in the workplace. It is though improving IT systems in a healthcare organization that IT assets can be relied upon by the organization (Wager et al., 2013). Furthermore, the CTO also ensures that there is appropriate acquisition and implementation of hardware and software, while also situating that the network technology solutions facilitate communication. The CTO/CIO plays almost similar roles in a healthcare organization, utilizing both leadership skills and IT management strengths to manage Information Technology.
The officers can improve employee and patient outcome by improving interactive patient-specific information. This can enhance patient-provider communication and build trust between patients and employees when the Information Technology eases communication. Hence, patient interventions are geared towards improving patient outcome using patient-centered interventions. Essentially, communication applications that enable employees to access specific patient information online facilitate interaction. It is through integrating information and e-health to enhance clinical operations and administrative work in the hospitals, that IT experts can facilitate better communication among health practitioners while also increasing operational efficiencies.
Developing technologies to improve health care processes
One of the emerging technologies in healthcare is Computerized Physician/Provider Order; Entry (CPOE) and Clinical Decision Support (Huston, 2013). The software is one of technologies that allow physicians to make orders electronically rather than rely on manual records. The main benefit of this technology is that it has the potential to simplify the ordering process and this reduces costs. Furthermore, the technology has resulted to fewer medical errors reported, as health practitioners use the technology to support their decision making. However, the initial costs of training are high, but the long-term benefits to health organizations will help health organizations to achieve there goals as the technology offers clinical decision support. In any case, since the technology encourages reliance on evidence-based practice.
Electronic Health Records (EHR) is continually evolving, and the technology increases efficiency in health organizations when well integrated into the information system. The technology allows health practitioners to access patient health history through digital records (Huston, 2013). This has the potential to lower healthcare costs as well as improve quality of care as medical practitioners can share information provided they maintain confidentiality about patient history, and sharing information should be done when necessary. Even though, there are federal programs to encourage EHR adoption, there are still hospitals medical facilities, which have not fully integrated the tech...