The Digital Age: Changing the Landscape of Healthcare Finance

This article discusses the impact of digital media on healthcare finance and the effective population health management. It covers the difference between EMR and EHR, and the advantages and disadvantages of EHR. It also explores the high-tech and high-touch digital approaches in healthcare finance.

Running Head: ECONOMIC AND HEALTHCARE FINANCE
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Economic and Healthcare Finance
The Digital Age: Changing the Landscape of Healthcare Finance

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Points that drives changes to health information technology
1. M- Health: - M- Health is related to mobile technology for patients. M- Health is
providing a convenient practice for patient and online care. The rapid increase in
mobile technologies motivates patients to manage their health in a better way,
communicate with doctors, and take an appointment and easy access to health
information. This technology helps patients and provides the remote monitoring of
health conditions. Mobile technology is a medium for M- Health where doctors and
patients communicate in the modern time (Dranove, Forman, Goldfarb & Greenstein,
2014).
2. Telemedicine: - Telemedicine is just like M- Health which contracts with an effective
way of communication between patient and doctor. Through telemedicine, specialists
can monitor and treat patients online through video conferencing. Telemedicine helps
people living in remote areas who do not have access to medical care. Some medical
centers have also expended their telemedicine capabilities.
3. Healthcare Information Technology (HIT) System: - According to (HIMSS) the
Healthcare Information and Management System Society is the system or device that
can interchange data and understand that shared data. The system must be
interoperable as to increase the benefits from the innovative format of patient data and
to understand the full perspective of the healthcare informatics movement system.
4. Wearable’s:- Wearable offer online patient record to collect information which rises
prevention and recover health results. The two most well-known wearables are a
smartwatch and a fit bit (Hood & Flores, 2012).

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High-tech and high-touch digital approaches
Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) is used for inpatient tablet-based patient portal
including analysis of mixed method. This approach studies the change in patient self-
efficacy and helps in managing chronic conditions. High- tech and high- touch are used to
improve the provision of an inpatient patient portal and training intervention for self-
management (Wünderlich, Wangenheim & Bitner, 2013). HTT digital approaches utilize
the My Chart Bedside (MCB) and My Chart Ambulatory (MCA) patient details to assist
patients in managing their chronic problems. My Chart Bedside (MCB) is an inpatient
detail of patient that can be used to access their data at a hospital that has developed the
technology. MCB approach is developed to provide patients and families’ access to
information customized for patients. This also includes a care plan for the day, materials
for health education, and a place to take notes and access to educational data. MCB is the
patient based on Web ambulatory give access to data but is mainly focused on outpatient
care functions. Health summary of the patient, a listing of medication, immunization, data
entry of patient health, tracking of appointment, and information related to financial
management of the patient all are included in My Chart Ambulatory (Lavallee, Wicks,
Alfonso Cristancho & Mullins, 2014).
Define digital media and its uses and why it is important?
Digital media are any media that are determined in machine-readable formats. Digital
media can be formed, viewed, circulated, changed and preserved on digital electronics
devices (Helsper & Eynon, 2010).

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Uses of Digital media
 To develop media literacy around the world: - Digital media help students to
identify access and analyze media from around the world. Helps to facilitate
awareness for events, people, societies, and culture.
 Determine individual opinions behind the issues in the world: - Students explore
opinions from other countries through digital media formed by individuals for
example podcasts, videos, blog posts and a number of technology tools (Park, 2012).
Importance of Digital Media
 Cost Effective: - Digital media is more profitable than the traditional way of media.
This is particularly essential for small business because they do not have a lot of
capital or many resources. Digital media can give you an inexpensive and more
operative advertising channel.
 Gratify to the Mobile Consumer: - Technology has progressed so much that mobile
devices are no longer measured as substitutes for computers or laptops. It is important
that we use a marketing solution that aims mobile devices properly.
 Helps in increasing ROI and Revenue: - Through the development of digital media,
the revenue will also increase. Digital media improves predictions and subsequently,
ROI will increase.
 Increased Transformations: - Digital media is important for online trading and
advertising goods and services online. We can improve and calculate transformation
rates by measuring achievement by incoming traffic that gets altered into leads or
sales.
 Competitors: - Many businesses have given up traditional promotion methods and
are more focused on digital media. It is difficult to market small business and grow

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because of so many competitors. We can use Google Alerts to get better ideas and
know where other competitors stand (Brabham, 2010).
Digital impact areas for patient engagement
 Proper management of health records for patients with multiple health anxieties or
long-lasting diseases.
 Frequent communication with a medical provider that leads to improved health
outcomes.
 The disabled patients provide the means of information.
 The decrease in face to face interaction and an increase in digital communication
(Furukawa, King, Patel, Hsiao, Adler-Milstein & Jha, 2014).
Difference between EMR and EHR
Electronic Medical Record (EMR)
The electronic medical record means everything we find in a paper chart, like the
history of medical, medications, diagnoses, check-up dates, and allergy. EMR person work
will be limited because they do not travel outside the practice. In EMR record the patient’s
data can be printed out and mailed to another provider (Hsiao, Hing, Socey & Cai, 2010).
Electronic Health Record (EHR)
The digital records of health data are called an electronic health record. They contain
all the information. Electronic health record includes a medical history of the patient,
progress notes, and lot more. They also contain other information such as insurance data,
demographic information, and data imported from personal devices. Electronic health

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record helps easy access to health information providers to coordinate and take decisions
(Cebul, Love, Jain & Hebert, 2011).
Electronic Health Records (EHR) Electronic Medical Records (EMR)
1. Provide health information digitally. Provide a digital type of chat.
2. (EHR) share efficient and real-time
data.
Not share data outside the individual practice.
3. Permit the patient to take medical
information with them.
Do not permit the patient to take medical
information.
4. (EHR) allows providers to take a
decision.
Mainly used by providers for diagnosis and
cure.
Advantages and disadvantages of an EHR
Advantages of EHR
1. Medical providers have financial incentives: - Government requires health
providers who trace patient traditional records with an authorized EHR. Medical
providers allow patients to obtain or receive the financial incentives. Government
motivates medical providers to use EHR to make patient care more effective.
2. Provide appropriate information: - Electronic health record system helps to create
templates for the patient. These templates maintain detailed notes or records for each
patient, making it easier to arrange data of patient on a systematic basis. EHR helps in
data loss by giving information about what needs to be done.
3. Patients can access their medical records easily: - Many medical providers have
created online portals with the help of electronic health records. These gateways allow

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patients to operate their medical records when they need to. This allows every patient
to realize how a doctor sees their present state of health every time.
4. Billing can become more perfect: - Electronic health records provide accuracy in the
billing record of the patient. Because of this advantage patients may not see any
change in third-party customers such as an insurance corporation will have a full
record of activities and duties. This advantage of the electronic health record can
increase the revenues that a health provider can accomplish.
5. Orders can be introduced with higher speed: - Through Electronic health records,
doctors can directly place orders. This decreases the chance of problem happening
because the writing of a doctor is sometimes problematic to understand. We can send
an electronic order directly to the choice of pharmacy for the patient (Menachemi &
Collum, 2011).
Disadvantages of Electronic Health Record
1. Electronic Health Record must be updated on a daily basis: - An electronic health
record must be updated on a daily basis so that system faces fewer issues. If a health
provider chooses a system that accepts occasional updates then it could be placed
under drawback when associated with services that to receive regular updates.
2. If a doctor does not have the ease to computer access:- Many specialists doctors
have a computer permanently installed but sometimes in small offices many doctors
bring a laptop or tablet to keep their electronic health record. If a doctor overlooks
electronic device then delay in the data of patient record may happen.
3. Electronic health record systems are expensive: - To train people, maintain, and set
up a system for medical facilities includes the higher amount. We can need many

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other facilities like to hire IT professionals so that we can keep the device running as
efficiently as possible.
4. Hackers can access patient files: - Hackers can easily access the information of the
patient through the electronic health record system. Even if the money is paid, there is
no assurance that the data is not copied and shared with people (Huser, Narus, &
Rocha, 2010).
Effective population health management
Healthcare Analytic System: - An effective population health management should achieve
and measure the settings like a hospital, a nursing facility by a skilled person, a doctor’s
office, patient’s home and a long-term care facility. Because of the changing financial and
medical requirements of providing care in these different areas, technology sellers have
focussed their products for each of these care settings. To develop an enterprise data
warehouse (EDW) is the finest technique to calculate the revenue, costs and the quality of the
care given in these numerous care settings (Chan & Woo, 2010).
Healthcare Adoption System: - Healthcare medical system delivery products must develop
an organized approach to adopting new information and making it available to clinicians in a
way that makes it easy to do the correct thing. A reliable tool to affect change throughout a
company takes a lot of effort to develop. It gives administrative sponsorship from the CEO
and clinically focused improvement teams involvement of doctors, nurses, and administration
information technology. Organizations that can effectively accept change are those that
sustain in a dynamic environment (Boyle, Thompson, Gregg, Barker & Williamson, 2010).

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