Health Care Informatics - Improving Quality

Running head: HEALTH CARE INFORMATICS IN HEALTH CARE
Health Care Informatics in Health Care
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction
For improving the issue of patient satisfaction, it is very crucial to take care about the
health care outcomes or treatment outcome as a better health care outcome can
simultaneously improve the patient satisfaction. In this context, it is important to mention the
fact that in order to improve the health care outcome in the hospital care setting it is very
crucial to use technology in the hospital care setting. Therefore, in recent time, the use of
health in care informatics has become very popular around the different countries of the
world. It is reported that the diffusion of health care informatics in the health care sector is
closely associated with the patient care outcomes. Adverse incidents are quite common in the
hospital care setting and thus it can contribute to the overall adverse outcomes related to the
patients’ health. The health care informatics refers to the use of technology in the health care
setting for improving the health care outcomes (Darvish et al., 2014).
In this essay, the effectiveness of health care informatics in improving the quality of
health care is evaluated in a brief manner.
Research Question
Can use of health care informatics can improve quality of health care?
Review of Literature
In modern days, the health care systems become dynamic in nature and in this case,
technology plays a crucial role in improving the patient outcomes. In this context, it can be
stated that the use of health care informatics can help the health care professionals and the
nurses in all the fields of nursing such as management, education, clinical areas and research.
According to the study of Rozenblum et al. (2013), it is stated that, for enhancing the patient
safety, the use of health care informatics or nursing informatics can be recommended. In this

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regard, it can be stated that the use of the health care informatics can help the health care
professionals in their work related to the treatment and thus the complexities of the work is
reduced due to the use of information technology in the health care sector. For example, it
can be reported that the health care informatics can be used in keeping the records of the
patients, e-prescribing, patient hand over, decision making for the health of the patients.
Therefore, it is quite obvious that the use of electronic health record system, e-prescribing
technology will help to reduce the rate of errors from the end of health care professionals and
as a consequence of this, the quality of health care will also improve eventually (Alotaibi &
Federico, 2017).
According to the study of Kisekka and Giboney (2018), it is reported that the use of
health care informatics in the hospital care setting can improve the level of patient
satisfaction by many ways and thereby the quality of health care outcome is also enhanced
due to the active participation of the patients in the treatment processes. The study reported
that the use of this technology in the health care sector can eventually help in building belief
over the use of this technology in the health care sector and along with this, the authors also
stated that the improved belief on this information technology system also enhanced the rate
of patient access to the health care records. In this study almost 3677 cancer patients were
selected as sample population and study result showed that the trust in health care informatics
is positively correlated with the patient care quality in the hospital care setting.
In another study by Agha (2014) the role of health information technology in
improving the quality of health care is described and along with this the study also discussed
about the cost reduction due to the use of information technology in the health care setting. In
this regard, it can be stated that adoption of the health informatics has a little impact on the
quality of care given to the patients in a hospital care setting and the study findings is slightly
contradictory from the other study findings.

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In another study by Seibert et al. (2014) examine the data of the effectiveness of the
barcode assisted medication administration system that is a part of the health care informatics
and in this study the authors reported about the use of electronic medication administration
record (eMAR) technology in order to evaluate the medication accuracy as a part of the
treatment outcome measurement. In this study, the authors used a pre-test and post-test
method for measuring the effectiveness of the health informatics in improving the quality of
health care. The study was conducted in two community-based hospitals. In phase 1, the
medication accuracy of both the hospitals were recorded and after 6 months and 12 months of
BCMA-eMAR implementation, the phase 2 and 3 of the study were organized by the authors.
The study result concluded that the overall medication accuracy rate in the first hospital was
enhanced by 1 per cent (89% at phase 1 and 90% at phase 3) along with a p value of 0.0015
(p=0.0015). Along with this, it was also reported that if the cases of wrong time errors were
excluded from the overall study result then it can be stated that the accuracy rate was
improved by 96 per cent in phase 3 from 92 per cent at phase 1. However, in case of hospital
2, the overall accuracy rate remained same. The study concluded that the improvement in the
overall medication accuracy is positively associated with the improved level of health care
quality and so it can be sated that the use of health care informatics can improve the quality
of health care as well.
Another important field of using the health informatics is associated with the use of
clinical decision support system in the hospital care setting. Therefore, the study examined
the effectiveness of using the clinical decision support system in the hospital care setting. In
this meta-analysis study, it was reported that the use of this technology in different field of
health care system is quite effective in nature and it also contributes to improve the clinical
processes as well. In this regard, it can be mentioned that the authors stated that the use of
this clinical decision support system is associated with the lowering of mortality rate, adverse

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incidents and costs of the medical treatments as well. Therefore, it can be stated that the use
of this technology in the health care facilities can enhance the quality of health care facilities
by reducing the rate of mortality and treatment costs (Ranji, Rennke & Wachter, 2014). In the
study of Castaneda et al. (2015) the effectiveness of the clinical decision support system in
the health care sectors is examined. In this study, the use of electronic health record system
and clinical decision support system are identified and evaluated and the authors reported that
the integration of patient information will help the health care professionals to provide better
health care facilities and along with this also helps to provide a better health care facilities at
a low costs. Therefore, the study concluded that use of this health care informatics can
improve the quality of the health care services.
In another study by Bowles, Dykes and Demiris (2015), the effectiveness of health
care information technology in improving the care process of older adults is examined. In this
study, the researchers reported that the application of the health care informatics in the care
process for older adults has significant positive effect on the quality of health care systems as
well. Hence, it can be reported that it is very useful to implement this system in the health
care facilities.
The most common use of health care informatics is the use of electronic health record
system and in various studies the effectiveness of this system is identified strongly. In this
context, the study findings of Churpek et al. (2014) can be mentioned. This study aimed to
predict the adverse health outcome in the ward by using the clinical health record system and
it can be stated that the prediction of adverse conditions by using the health care information
technology, the health care professionals can take proper initiatives to reduce the adverse
impact of the condition and thereby the overall quality of health care will be improved. In this
study, 56,649 controls, 109 CA patients, 2543 ICU patients were included. A person-time
multinomial logistic regression model and VitalPAC™ Early Warning Score (ViEWS) were

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compared with each other. The study result showed that the model derived from EHR was
more effective in predicting the cardiac arrest cases and ICU transfers and this model was
more sensitive than the ViEWS for CA patients (65% vs. 41%).
Conclusion
Therefore, it can be concluded that the use of health informatics can help in
improving the quality of health care provided to the patients by many ways. Not only this, but
most of the studies also identified the fact the use of technology can also reduce the work
burden of the health care professionals as well.

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Conclusion
Agha, L. (2014). The effects of health information technology on the costs and quality of
medical care. Journal of health economics, 34, 19-30.
Alotaibi, Y. K., & Federico, F. (2017). The impact of health information technology on
patient safety. Saudi medical journal, 38(12), 1173.
Bowles, K. H., Dykes, P., & Demiris, G. (2015). The use of health information technology to
improve care and outcomes for older adults. Research in gerontological nursing, 8(1), 5-
10.
Castaneda, C., Nalley, K., Mannion, C., Bhattacharyya, P., Blake, P., Pecora, A., ... & Suh,
K. S. (2015). Clinical decision support systems for improving diagnostic accuracy and
achieving precision medicine. Journal of clinical bioinformatics, 5(1), 4.
Churpek, M. M., Yuen, T. C., Park, S. Y., Gibbons, R., & Edelson, D. P. (2014). Using
electronic health record data to develop and validate a prediction model for adverse
outcomes on the wards. Critical care medicine, 42(4), 841.
Darvish, A., Bahramnezhad, F., Keyhanian, S., & Navidhamidi, M. (2014). The role of
nursing informatics on promoting quality of health care and the need for appropriate
education. Global journal of health science, 6(6), 11.
Murphy, E. V. (2014). Clinical decision support: effectiveness in improving quality processes
and clinical outcomes and factors that may influence success. The Yale journal of biology
and medicine, 87(2), 187.

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Ranji, S. R., Rennke, S., & Wachter, R. M. (2014). Computerised provider order entry
combined with clinical decision support systems to improve medication safety: a narrative
review. BMJ Qual Saf, 23(9), 773-780.
Rozenblum, R., Donzé, J., Hockey, P. M., Guzdar, E., Labuzetta, M. A., Zimlichman, E., &
Bates, D. W. (2013). The impact of medical informatics on patient satisfaction: a USA-
based literature review. International journal of medical informatics, 82(3), 141-158.
Seibert, H. H., Maddox, R. R., Flynn, E. A., & Williams, C. K. (2014). Effect of barcode
technology with electronic medication administration record on medication accuracy
rates. American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy, 71(3), 209-218.

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