Health Information System 

Posted: December 22nd, 2022

Health Information System 

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Health Information System

Effective and reliable information is the basis of decision-making across all health systems. Effective information is vital for creating health system policy formation and implementation, health research, human resources (HR) improvement, financing, service delivery, health education and empowerment, as well as governance and regulations. The health information system (HIS) offers the underpinnings for decision making, and mainly seeks to generate data, compile the information, analyze and synthesize, and to communicate the information. HIS gathers information from the health sector and other areas analyzes the content and ensures their overall timeliness, relevance, and quality. It changes information into data for decision-making within the health facility. The HIS is sometimes equated with evaluation and monitoring, which some thinkers consider as a reductionist view. Other than evaluating and monitoring, the HIS serves other functions such as offering alerts and warning indications, improving planning, improving research, supporting the management of the health facility and patient, promoting health research, and analyzing the trends. Usually, information is of little significance if it does not take the format that satisfy the requirements of multiple users such as managers, policy-makers, individuals, planners, communities, and health care practitioners. The study employs a virtual name (BeFit) to refer to a facility offering services through electronic platforms, but still lacks adequate competence to compete with some of the already existing facilities in terms of implementing an effective health information system (HIS). The analysis illustrates the essence developing proper mechanisms that would help BeFit improve its HIS.

The Vision, Mission, and Strategic Objectives of a Virtual Health Care Facility

Every organization serving a large number of customers follows are guided by the vision, mission, and strategic objectives that they develop following extensive consultations and consideration. Regardless of whether one is running a small or large business, having an organizational mission and vision offers workers with a purpose. BeFit offers a physician’s control centers with medical practitioners trained in various areas (Dhal, 2017). The nurses, health coaches, nutritionists, and family medicine specialists among other practitioners are always available to assist patients in Dubai, other parts of the UAE, and around the globe. The hospital through its healthcare professionals attend to the patients’ requests via video or phone with the capacity to refer people to nearby pharmacies, clinics, and hospitals when necessary. The organizational mission and vision are vital to the hospital’s activities and strategy because they are utilized to outline the future objectives and operational plans. The facility’s vision is to offer compassionate, accessible, high quality, and cost effective health care. The group’s mission is to help members of the community achieve better health and receive information that would help them improve their wellbeing. The hospital’s strategic objectives are to employ advanced technology to facilitate business operations, and to offer quick services that reduce the waiting time.

Efficiency and Quality of the Organization’s HIS

The Framework and Standards for Country Health Information Systems by the Health Metrics Network outlines the six major components of a HIS and the measures required for each. There is need to define what forms a HIS, and how the components relate with each other to give better information for appropriate decisions and improved health (WHO, 2019). Other than focusing on the six components, it is possible to further divide HIS into the inputs, processes, and outputs (WHO, 2019). The inputs refer to the processes involving the collection and management of data. Outputs focus on the production, distribution, and use of data.

Inputs – Health Information System Resources

            The health information system resources consist of the planning frameworks, regulatory, and legislative frameworks needed to develop a fully functional HIS, and the resources required for such a system to work well. Such resources may include the financing, technical support, personnel, coordination mechanisms, and ICT (WHO, 2019). Mobile Doctors brings together specialists from different fields who work in cooperation to ensure the system functions. The virtual health facility has a group in charge of ensuring the system functions appropriately, but the management offers all the necessary support, including the financial resources required to maintain the system (Dhal, 2017). The group, however, seem to lack appropriate framework to support both the functioning of telemonitoring and telemedicine, which would provide more effective outcomes. The facility should focus on developing proper guidelines to regulate and improve the virtual health care services.

Processes – Indicators

            The indicators are the major plan and strategies for a HIS. The indicators signify the determinants of health, inputs, outputs, health status, and outcomes. BeFit structures the system in such a way that all the health practitioners attend to the various inquiries from clients at the same time. The service providers shift between day time and night shifts to allow the health specialists have enough rest. Patients, however, can still interact with a particular health practitioner even if they are not on duty to avoid any form of inconveniencies. The specialists smartphones and personal computers are linked to the facility’ health information system to allow them offer services remotely. The plan enables the specialists to interact with patients via video or phone. However, the group should consider various ways of interacting with the patients, as well as introduce a free toll number that would allow more patients to call and get assistance on their conditions. The ability to call the health practitioners without having to part with any money appeals to many people, attracting more customers.

Data Management

            Data management comprises all ways of handling data, and may include the collection, storage, processing, quality assurance, analysis, and flow of the information. The data sources can fall into two major sections; population-based mechanisms such as population surveys, civil registration, and census and institutional-based data such as resource, service, and individual resources (WHO, 2019). Other ways through which organizations collect data include information produced by CBOs (community based organizations), research, and health surveys (WHO, 2019). The other mechanisms do not fit appropriately into either of the two major forms but can offer vital information that may not be easy to get from elsewhere. BeFit relies on the health practitioner’s skills to store, arrange, and retrieve the data, but seems to experience significant challenges during technical breakdowns such as when the system fails to respond because the facility lacks a separate ICT team to rectify such abnormalities. The lack of an ICT team usually derails some vital processes such as the synthesis and evaluation of data before distribution.

Data Collection

           BeFit collects the information about the functioning of the HIS from different sources that are responsible for generating, synthesizing, and analyzing the information. The group acquires vital information from the national statistics offices and from the Ministry of Health records. The group also acquires vital information from the patients it relates with, as well as from other stakeholders. Mobile Doctors acquires the relevant software and hardware to store and process the data to ensure ease of retrieval, and to ensure that nothing affects the quality of the information. However, the facility would improve its functionality by exploring other forms of collecting data to acquire as much information as possible to help it make wise decisions regarding its operations.

Outputs – Information products

            The organization changes the gathered data into information, which provide the knowledge and evidence to shape health actions. The health practitioners work on the information they source from various areas to meet specific requirements of the customers, and to ensure they are of value. The specialists, for example, produce information regarding a patient’s bill or about the medications they need to take to control particular conditions. The team handling the information also evaluates some of the vital statistics from the national institutions to acquire insight on vital concepts regarding new regulations relating to taxation or policy changes. Unfortunately, the lack of a designated ICT team derails the group’s attempts to work on the collected data, especially when the specialists do not take much time evaluating the information.

Dissemination and use

            The importance of health information can be improved by making it easily reachable to decision makers and by offering incentives for using the information. The specialists responsible for helping patients to deal with the various health issues work on the data as already mentioned in the previous section and are responsible for distributing them to the various stakeholders and organizational leaders to facilitate policy-making. Presently, BeFit distributes the information through video chats, phone calls, and social media avenues such as Twitter and Facebook. However, Mobile Doctors could improve its dissemination of information by exploring other avenues such as digital media, print media, and other social media channels, including YouTube, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The facility mainly uses the information it produces to make decisions that would influence the functioning of the organization, as well as improve the health of its clients.

Quality of Produced Information

            Even though BeFit strives to offer the best services by delivering timely and quality information, the facility must overcome some of the loopholes that derail the attempts give quality information. The lack of a well-developed framework as required in the health information system resources as well as the inability to achieve proper coordination between telemonitoring and telemedicine is adequate proof that the group needs to improve its frameworks. The facility should also develop a working environment that works towards producing quality information. The quality of produced data could also be low if the group experiences considerable challenges in strategizing and planning for its activities. BeFit’s data management approaches is likely to have adverse effects on the production of quality data. Rather than setting aside an ICT team to oversee the technical aspect of the data, the health specialists are responsible for evaluating and assessing the data from their desktops. As such, the practitioners might not have enough time to evaluate and arrange all the data if they have to attend to patients at the same time. The data produced in this case will be unfiltered and might require additional analysis to comprehend their meaning, which should not be the case in an organization that serves patients from various parts of the world. The inadequate mechanisms to manage data at BeFit are likely to interfere with information produced as well as dissemination and use unless the group rectifies the weak areas.

Strategies for Improvements

BeFit should consider each of the six components and find ways of improving on the areas that do not appear to function effectively. A suitable way to improve the area of health information system resources is to develop more effective regulations and guidelines to improve the issuance of health care services (WHO, 2019). For instance, the group could restructure the entire policy defining how the system works to achieve efficiency and service provision. Refining the policy would require the leaders to acquire information from reliable sources on how to improve and conduct a SWOT analysis to understand the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that could either support or interfere with its attempts to make necessary improvement (WHO, 2019). The organizational leadership, however, should identify other ways of assessing the group’s ability to make necessary improvements and go ahead with the transformation.

To improve the HIS, BeFit should embrace suitable approaches for evaluating the performance of the system. The World Health Organization (WHO) notes that the approach for evaluating performance of HIS and the quality of data they produce have rarely been described or appropriately applied (WHO, 2019).In areas other than health, especially for financial and macroeconomic statistics, substantial work has happened to elaborate the best practices, guidelines, and standards. A widely used approach is offered by the UN Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics. The teams using the framework should understand that data quality assurance mechanisms generally separate assessment guideline for information outputs from those that have connection with the quality of institutional frameworks required for the production of reliable data (WHO, 2019). Alternatively, the facility may employ the Health Metrics Network approach that identifies the main standards and components of an organizational HIS. The Health Metrics Network requires the facility to measure how it performs in the six components of HIS. The design outlines the measures to be achieved for every component, and advocates for proper data management, change of data into useful information, distribution and use (WHO, 2019). BeFit understands the need to assess its HIS and is already relying on the Health Metrics Network. Even with the guidance of the assessment framework, BeFit still needs to put more effort to overcome the constraints that hinder it from being one of the leading virtual health facilities in the UAE.

BeFit should emulate real healthcare facilities that handle the six components of HIS in the appropriate manner. BeFit can improve its health information system adopting appropriate assessment methods, and by imitating other institutions that achieve the best results from their interaction with patients over electronic platforms. Locally, the group can borrow vital lessons from the Dubai Healthcare City (DHCC), which announced the initial telehealth program in the area in January 2019. The launch featured a live conversation between a doctor and a patient (Dubai Healthcare City, 2019). The introduction is in accordance with the Fifty-Year Charter created by Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, s the ruler of Dubai and the Prime Minister and Vice President of the UAE. The DHCC adheres to proper health information system resources that outline the guidelines and resources needed to make the program successful (Dubai Healthcare City, 2019). The institution has a policy that guides the entire process and hires specialists with different qualifications to attend to the patients’ requests. The CEO of Dubai Healthcare City Authority, Dr. Ramadan AlBlooshi, said during the launch that the group emphasizes the essence of regulations in telehealth as vital step to offering quality healthcare by abiding by a set of policies. Concerning the indicators, the Mobile Doctors can acquire vital lessons from DHCC, which invites external experts to help with devising a suitable strategy to addressing the patients’ needs without much constraint (Dubai Healthcare City, 2019). The group plans to retrain its doctors after a while to equip them with the necessary skills to respond to emerging patient needs. The group also has interchange programs with other facilities, equipping its specialists with proper insight (Dubai Healthcare City, 2019). DHCC has a separate ICT team that allows for adequate analysis of the data before distribution thereby lessening the work of healthcare givers.

            Internationally, BeFit can acquire helpful insight from Mercy Virtual, which seeks to close the care gap using the latest technology. Mercy Virtual has a stable and flexible framework to guide the functioning of the physicians, nurses, nutritionists, pediatricians, and other specialists as well as regulate the functioning of the whole system (Mercy Virtual, 2019). The group acquires a wide range of information from different sources that it handles through its ICT team that is adequately trained on advanced operational mechanisms. The ICT team evaluates all the data and prepares them a way that is easier to use by the various groups working to achieve the organizational goals and objectives. The reliable ICT panel together with the effective software and hardware make it easy to disseminate the information that used in various areas. BeFit can learn essential lessons from the way Mercy Virtual handles its indicators, which are the plans and strategies it relies on to improve functionality (Mercy Virtual, 2019). The four-storey building measuring 125,000 square foot allows the group to offer various services relating to telehealth (Mercy Virtual, 2019). The facility, for example, has distinct sections for offering online assistance and medication to patients suffering from cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, stress and depression. The hospital is now improving its strategies and plans on how to help people contemplating suicide. Other than the main station in Chesterfield, Missouri, the group has other 43 centers across the U.S. where patients can get virtual assistance (Mercy Virtual, 2019). The strategy Mercy Virtual is developing as many stations as possible to pay special attention the different health issues that its patients report. Also important is BeFit would improve its dissemination and use of information if it learns from Mercy Virtual that effectively uses various platforms to reach out to the stakeholders. BeFit should consider launching an official website because currently people can only find information about the health facility from a few social media sites and some websites. It might have hire professionals who shall help it design a suitable website that would offer crucial information to the stakeholders. The website should be in such a way that the stakeholders can get all the necessary information they require about the health care facility, and about the services they may get by contacting the specialists.

            Acquiring some concepts from the organizations that seem to adhere to the appropriate ways of handling the six components of HIS may be of significant help to BeFit. Other than learning to create an effective guideline and policy to regulate the entire practice, the facility understands the importance of establishing a technical team in charge of handling the information rather than relying on the health specialists who focus on evaluating the data and offering services at the same time. BeFit, however, should be willing to increase its allocation of resources to achieve the desired objectives. BeFit, for example, will have to increase its financial allocation to facilitate the creation of a separate ICT team that would solely focus on analyzing and releasing the data in a form that is easy to use and easily applicable by policy makers. Offering health care services and at the same time evaluating the data derails the attempt by BeFit to be effective in its services because of the multitasking by health specialists. Establishing an ICT team will impact on the six components of HIS, and will have significant effects on the functioning of data management, information products, as well as dissemination and use, which are the three areas where processed data play crucial functions. BeFit can learn the need to expand its indicators from Mercy Virtual that runs a broad portfolio. The UAE-based virtual facility can allocate more funds to lease new centers that would improve availability as well permit the provision of many services. Such a commitment would also require more human and financial resources because the group must hire additional specialists to serve in the various stations, as well as pay for their services. Even though the expansion may require BeFit to put additional investment, it is likely to make the organization’s plans and strategies more competitive locally, nationally, and globally.

Conclusion

The study illustrates the attempts by BeFit to offer telehealth, and highlights the areas that require improvement to achieve the best results with regard to implementing the HIS. The group experiences some constraints in its application of the six vital components of HIS with one of the major issues being the lack of proper framework and regulations to improve the health information system resources. The hospital also needs to identify more ways of interacting with patients as well as other stakeholders to achieve efficiency in offering services. The improvement would depend on BeFit’s attempts to develop a separate ICT team that solely focuses on managing the data rather than leaving the work to the health specialists. Even though managing the data and offering healthcare services would equip the health practitioners with more skills as well as allow them to be flexible, such a setup only subjects the healthcare givers to more work, which could affect the outcome of the health practitioners. BeFit can acquire vital lessons from other institutions such as DHCC and Mercy Virtual that employ suitable frameworks and guidelines to regulate the functions of the HIS and the handling and dissemination of data. Otherwise, failing to consider suitable ways of improving functionality and handling of data would derail the attempts to produce quality data that has positive effects on all stakeholders.

References

Dubai Healthcare City (2019). Dubai healthcare city. Retrieved from

www.dhcc.ae/

Mercy Virtual. (2019). Mercy Virtual. Retrieved from

https://www.mercyvirtual.net/

WHO. (2019). World Health Organization. Retrieved from

www.who.int/