Posts By: Beth Osborne

What Is a Health Information System?

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health information system

Technology has become a vital tool for healthcare. Clinicians and healthcare professionals use it every day to improve patient care and streamline processes. A critical aspect of healthcare technology is a health information system (HIS). 

Healthcare Information System Examples

A HIS is any system that manages healthcare data. That’s a very broad definition, and there are many types of systems. Some of those include:

  • Electronic Health Record (EHR) or Electronic Medical Record (EMR): These two terms are almost interchangeable. These platforms collect, store, and share data related to a patient’s health history. Data within an EHR or EMR is protected health information (PHI) and must be secure. 
  • Practice Management Software: This type of system manages the daily operations of a practice, such as scheduling and billing. It can help automate many administrative tasks. 
  • Master Patient Index (MPI): This type of platform connects separate patient records across multiple databases. Much of the time, MPIs are employed to reduce duplications and inaccuracies. 
  • Pharmacy Management System: This software includes all data related to a patient’s prescriptions and is found in a number of pharmacy settings, including retail, hospital, and long-term care. 
  • Patient Portals: These systems allow patients to access their health data, including medications and lab results. They can also use it to communicate with physicians and track appointments.
  • Clinical Decision Support (CDS): This type of platform analyzes data from clinical and administrative systems. The analysis can then enable clinicians to make the best clinical decisions. 

The Advantages of Using a HIS

Health information systems focus on efficiency and optimal data management. By using them, you can reap these benefits:

  • Data analytics: The amount of healthcare data created increases daily. Without a robust system, the data has little value. With the aid of technology, you can gather, aggregate, and analyze data. This analysis can improve individual patient care, provide insight on how to manage population health, and reduce costs. 
  • Collaborative care: The healthcare ecosystem includes many types of providers—hospitals, specialists, pharmacy, and more. To ensure continuity of care, being able to quickly and securely transfer data is necessary. 
  • Cost control: Removing paper from the process and going digital can reduce costs for an organization. Technology also allows for quicker exchanges, reducing inefficiencies.

What to Consider When Choosing a HIS

The foremost concern you should have when selecting any software is security and privacy. Healthcare is a huge target for cybercriminals, so you need to ensure that any program you use has the highest security protocols. Any concerns with the security of the data could also compromise HIPAA compliance.

Beyond security, functionality and features are critical to your decision. Consider what your expectations are for the software as well as if it is interoperable with other existing systems. Compare the leading systems in the category to ensure that your needs are met. 

What If You Want to Change Your HIS?

There are many reasons that hospitals, health systems, physician practices, and pharmacies will choose to move to a new platform. Their current software may be sunsetting or changing so that it no longer meets your needs. Cost is also another factor that can make you want to switch. 

No matter what the reason may be to change your HIS, you can take your data with you. With data conversions, data can be pulled from your current system and then loaded to your new system. This gives you the freedom to migrate to a new system without the worries of what happens to your data. 

Thinking of changing one of your information systems? Chat with our experts about how we seamlessly and securely convert data. With over two decades of experience and over 27,000 complete conversions, we make data accessible and portable. 

HIPAA Privacy Rule: Is Your Healthcare Organization Compliant?

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HIPAA Privacy Rule

Under HIPAA, healthcare organizations have many responsibilities related to how they collect, store, use, and transfer protected health information (PHI). That includes providing access to patients. The HIPAA Privacy Rule dictates that patients have the right to access their PHI by request. The PHI also must be delivered within 30 days of the request.

OCR Levies Fines Against Noncompliant Entities

While providing a patient access to their healthcare information should be simple enough, healthcare organizations have struggled with compliance. In 2019, two providers were fined by the Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR). OCR announced plans last year to begin enforcing the Privacy Rule and fining violators.

In September of 2019, the OCR reached a settlement with Bayfront Health for $85,000. This marks the first settlement for such a violation. But they aren’t the only ones. A study by medRxiv found that half of providers are not compliant with this provision of HIPAA.

The settlement comes after a patient made a request to Bayfront for records related to an unborn child. The organization did not respond within 30 days, and the patient filed a complaint with the OCR. After an investigation was launched, the patient did receive the records, albeit nine months later.

The OCR settled another case against Korunda Medical with an $85,000 fine and a plan for corrective action. A patient filed a complaint after requesting PHI be sent to a third-party. The records were finally sent to the third-party but not within the window of time required.

Supplying PHI: Streamlining the Process for Compliance

Like any data workflow in the realm of healthcare, there must be a process that considers timeliness, compliance, and security. Healthcare entities receive requests for medical records on a regular basis. They also are well versed on the need to complete these timely to remain compliant with the HIPAA Privacy Rule.

But healthcare organizations struggle with this process. The struggle could be due to many reasons, including:

  • Lack of technical expertise
  • No assigned employee to handle requests
  • Inferior security protocols
  • No policies or procedures regarding requests (or ones that aren’t enforced)
  • Inability to access data quickly

No matter the size of a healthcare organization, any of these causes could be the culprit. But looking outside their own walls may be the answer to remaining compliant and fulfilling requests promptly.

Choose a Data Partner to Keep You Compliant

With custom data solutions from InfoWerks, your organization could shift the onus of the responsibility. We can create workflows that allow for the secure and fast transfer of PHI to the patient or a third-party.

The threat of noncompliance with the Privacy Rule could cost you money and your reputation. Make sure you are operating within the rules with our help. Contact us today to see how we can reduce risk and help you remain compliant.

The EHR Satisfaction Gap: Is Lack of Relevant Training the Real Culprit?

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ehr satisfaction gap

While many have long blamed the user experience as the biggest contributor to the EHR satisfaction gap, a new study puts the onus on training. With specialized training and education, clinicians may become more satisfied with their software once they understand all its capabilities.

About the Study

The KLAS’ Arch Collaborative completed the study, polling over 72,000 clinicians in more than 150 hospitals and health systems. The study sought to uncover the real roots of dissatisfaction. Many researchers had the perspective that EHRs have too many shortcomings. While other studies have validated user experience as a reason for dissatisfaction, it’s far from the only one.

The study found that many clinicians didn’t know how to optimize their EHR. The resolution? Invest more in training and education for users. If providers could focus more on how to use the EHR to fit their needs, then there would be higher adoption and efficiencies.

The different user experiences that physicians may have when using an EHR isn’t really about the software’s design but rather their mastery of it.

For EHRs to be a tool that enables better care, hospitals and healthcare systems should put less emphasis on the software’s usability and more on features that offer customization for users. When clinicians know how to successfully use the platform, then it becomes a valuable asset. The clear path to this is with better training.

satisfaction gap EHR

Developing EHR Education Programs

Any organization using an EHR, especially large ones, needs to develop an EHR education program. In the study, overall satisfaction of the EHR increased significantly with every additional hour of training. Organizations that only provided four hours of education were left mostly with frustrated users.

Training and education should support EHR personalization. Clinicians are certainly used to a high level of customization when it comes to personal technology. Why should they expect anything less on the job?

EHR Dissatisfaction Leads to Burnout

The EHR satisfaction gap is certainly a contributor to physician burnout. In a study published by the Mayo Clinic, a link was found between a physician’s rating of EHR usability and burnout. The higher the physician scored usability, the lower the odds of burnout, and vice versa.

Thus, training and education on EHR usage could be a buffer for burnout as well. If clinicians feel as though the technology, they are provided is insufficient, this could cause extra work, lost productivity, and worry.

The Greatest Predictor of EHR User Experience

The KLAS study determined that the greatest predictor of the EHR user experience is how users rate the quality of their training. It’s not the tool itself or how much money is spent. With inadequate training, physicians are three-and-a-half more times to report that their EHR does not deliver quality care.

The user interface certainly matters. But the slickest platform won’t become a reliable tool of a physician without the proper training. With professional software in almost any other industry, training has long been seen as the gateway to adoption. Healthcare needs to start embracing this user-centric view.

With this approach, the EHR satisfaction gap could close considerably. The power of technology is only as good as the user behind it. And just as clinicians train for years to use medical tools, they need the same kind of support when infusing technology into their workflows.