Fictional health informatics case study
Abstract
There are few studies which gave been made on fictional health informatics in the area of telemedicine. The case study makes an analysis on the health informatics aspect in telemedicine, which are intended to make improvements to the quality of telemedicine. There are a number of quality control techniques in telemedicine, which have been developed so as to improve on the use of the telemedicine products and services. The information which has been collected is then handed over to the various manufacturers of telemedicine equipments and other applications (Goldstein et al 2007).
An informative questionnaire can be designed to collect the required information on the health informatics applications. The other techniques applied include the use of a technical file, as well as a quality assessment list. This are all intended to evaluate as well as improve on the quality of applications of the telemedicine technology. The information sources will then be improved on a continuous basis in reference to the suggestions that the manufacturers and other stakeholders will be making. Considering the benefits of working in a group, each piece of information is to be structured to cover various aspects for the assessment of the various telemedicine products as well as services. Thus, the informatics questionnaire will be the key equipment for obtaining information, and the ways in evaluating the information acquired. The various tools which can be proposed in this case study are used in an integrated manner, and they all form the whole set of information control in telemedicine (Goldstein et al 2007).
Introduction
The main purpose of this case study is to assess the health informatics in relation to the control tools, which are applied in telemedicine applications so as to provide suggestions to improve on the applications of telemedicine practices. The tools of control have been assessed, considering their integrated functionality nature. The continuous interactions with the various telemedicine suppliers will enable the medical experts to establish the most appropriate health informatics techniques. This will in turn assist in improving the telemedicine products as well as services. In this case, a report is made on the development of the critical information tools which are being applied in telemedicine (Sullivan, 2002).
Materials and techniques
Health informatics is a comprehensive and heterogeneous system, which is made up the aspects of bioengineering, and information technology as well as medical physics. The key aspects which need to be covered in health informatics include first of all, how to acquire information from the tools being applied, and on the other hand the assessment of the entire system involved in information collection. By focusing on these aspects, a set of procedures will be developed to aid the study. The information for the research studies in health informatics is mainly collected by use of an informative questionnaire, which are administered to the various suppliers of the telemedicine applications (Sullivan, 2002).
Health informatics
The aspect of Telemedicine is one of the most recent developments in clinical medicine, which involves the transfer of medical information via the telephone as well as the internet and other networks. The information is then used to aid in making decisions on medical consultations, as well as remote medical procedures and other medical examinations (Rubenfeld & Scheffer, 2005).
Health informatics is an aspect of telemedicine, which consists of information science and healthcare as well as computer science, and dwells mainly on information transfer. It mainly deals with the various resources and techniques as well as devices, which are needed to optimize the retrieval, and storage as well as the application of information, which relates to health care and also biomedicine. The various tools applied in telemedicine especially in health informatics include computers, clinical guidelines as well as formal medical technologies and the other forms of information and communication technologies (Goldstein et al 2007).
The subsections of health informatics consist of clinical, imaging, public health informatics and dental informatics as well as others like consumer health informatics and clinical informatics among many other forms of health informatics. There are several aspects of health informatics, and some of these aspects include medical architectures in the areas of electronic medical records as well as the other forms of health information systems. These applications are being made in billing, research studies as well as scheduling. The second aspect of health informatics is the decision support systems, which are mainly applied in health care such as the clinical decisions support systems (Sullivan, 2002).
The third aspect are the standards as well as the integration profiles like the health care enterprise, which are for enhancing the transfer of information between the various healthcare information system,. These standards and profiles are meant to define the ways in which data and other forms of information should be exchanged with in the healthcare systems. The fourth aspect is the controlled vocabularies like for example the systematized nomenclature of medicine and other related clinical terminologies. This are applied so as to allow for a standard as well as accurate transfer of data and information contents between the various information systems and its various providers. The other aspect is the applications of the hand held devices, which are set to assists the users with the various processes of data entry, obtaining information and also the most crucial aspect of decision making. Finally, there is an aspect of international standards which are based on the ICS 35.250.80, which are being used to govern the international practices of telemedicine especially those related to health informatics as stipulated by ISO 27799 (Sullivan, 2002).
Development
As of this current date there is a patent which is held pending in relation to medical informatics. This patent is intended to provide a common platform through which various communications for all the already existing software and other forms of safe repository medical record will be made. This patent has the ability of cutting down the medical errors and duplication practices as well as the fraudulent acts. The expected results from the patent implementation is that a number of lives will be saved, and thus benefit the general welfare of the society. This is a report which has been made by the Institute of Medicine in the United States of America (Rubenfeld & Scheffer, 2005).
The actual development of the aspect of health informatics can be dated to the year 1950 in the United States of America, during a time that the microchip and the computer technologies were being developed. The early applications of health informatics consisted of medical computing, computer science and data processing as well as medical software engineering among other forms of medical computer technology applications. In the United States of America, the initial applications of this technology were made in the dental technology projects, and eventually developed to expert systems such as INTERNIST-1 and many others (Rubenfeld & Scheffer, 2005).
At around the 1970s, an increasing number of commercial vendors for the telemedicine applications started to transact in the management as well as electronic forms of medical record systems. Even though various products of health informatics exist at the market place, it has been reported that a very small proportion of the health practitioners are reported to apply the electronic care records systems. At around 1996, a regulating agency was established in Utah that mainly dealt with the issues of privacy as well as the medical record transfer. This regulatory agency lead to the establishment a form of impetus for the large numbers of medical experts in moving towards the application of the electronic medical records management system, and other related software which was intended to secure the system of medical billing (Sullivan, 2002).
Since then, the United States of America has been seen making numerous efforts and investments towards establishing a form of standardized system of health care information structure. The recent case was reported in the year 2004, whereby the department of health as well as that of human services established an office which was charged with the responsibility of widespread adoption of the various forms of health records. This office is named the National Coordinator for Health Information services. There have also been a number of cases of establishing a form of private organizations in these areas, which are being supported by the federal government with a purpose of establishing strong connections in the implementation of health care information technology systems. The vendors and other major stakeholders of these applications have been certified to transact in this applications (Rubenfeld & Scheffer, 2005).
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References
Goldstein, D, Groen, P, Ponkshe, S, Wine, M, 2007. Medical informatics 20/20: quality and electronic health records through collaboration, open solutions, and innovation. Jones & Bartlett Publishers
Rubenfeld, M, Scheffer, B, 2005. Critical thinking tactics for nurses: tracking, assessing, and cultivating thinking to improve competency-based strategies. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
Sullivan, F, 2002. HEALTH INFORMATICS. Royal college of general practitioners.