Health Information Technology Architecture

This article discusses the issues faced in medical centers by patients, medical staff members, and management. It explores the lack of privacy of medical records, the inconvenience of patients having to complete forms by hand, misunderstandings between different departments, expensive drugs, and long time spent finding patients' medical records. It also highlights the benefits of health information technology in addressing these issues and improving healthcare services.

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The issues faced in medical centers can be categorized into three;
Issues faced by-
 patients
 medical staff members
 the management
Issues faced by patients
Patients in medical centers deserve to be treated with good care and respect. Their medical
records should be private and confidential. A case where the nurse leaves patients documents open
where everyone can read is against their rights. A doctor should also not talk about a patient’s medical
health information with other people. Secondly, a case where the patient has to fill everything by hand
for the doctors to get required information, it may be challenging to those who don’t know how to write,
those who are very sick to remember anything and just came alone to the clinic. Thirdly when the
doctors give too many instructions to patients they may forget and sometimes it can be dangerous if it’s
a prescription. The issues being faced by patients are contrary to medical health care goals and missions
like understanding, patients and quality health care to patients.
Issues faced by the staff member
Staff members include nurses, managing officers, physicians, and receptionist’s medical staff
requires a suitable and convenient environment, understanding and coordination among the team, easy

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access to patients’ information, enough time with a patient and all patients’ medical data since birth in
order to perform their job perfectly. Contrary, staff is affected by issues like;
Nurses taking a long time looking for medical records in cabinets which may be misfiled or
even go missing.
Medical centers which have not adopted information technology like our case here make nurses
go through a hard time searching patients’ medical file which is stored manually in the cabinets. This
takes a lot of time which should have been utilized to do something else. This leads to poor quality
medical services. When the files have been misfiled or are missing it may lead to loss of patients’
medical data. This will lead to insufficient information.
Nurses may be required to work for a double shift due to insufficient staff
An insufficient number of nurses require nurses to work for a long period of time. Long working
hours can lead to poor services to patients because the nurses are exhausted. Information technology
assists in making work easier for nurses, hence better services to patients.
Difficult to compare records hence unable to analyze trends and patterns of patients’
diseases
Manually stored medical records will make it difficult for doctors to compare the trend of
diseases which are mostly affecting patients visiting their health care facility, hence unable to undertake
proper research which could have enhanced their experience in treatment. Information technology plays
an important role because it can be used to sort all the records making it possible for the nurses to
compare patterns of diseases. (Kijsanayotin, Pannarunothai, & Speedie,2009).
Being unable to understand what someone else has written.

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A case where the pharmacist is unable to read what has been written by the doctor and have to
confirm. This leads to wastage of time and confusion in the medical center. Information technology
would help to avoid this confusion because everything is typed and clear for everyone to be able to read.
Being unable to access patients medical records since birth
Manually storage of data in the cabinets will make it hard to store all patients’ medical
information since birth hence poor tracking of patients’ health, Compared to information technology
which makes all medical information of patients available since birth being stored systematically.
Repeating tests because of losing data
Taking tests and storing the data manually can lead to loss of data which cannot be retrieved
back; the only solution is to repeat the tests which lead to wastage of data.
Issues faced by management
It’s the role of management to ensure that everything is running smoothly in the clinic. Issues
facing management are like the clinic running out of space because of the increasing number of records
which require more cabinets hence more rooms. There is also the fear of using computers to avoid
increase in cost. The issues re is also inadequate documentation of medical records where by all data is
stored in one server which in case its corrupted by someone then there is no backup or it may be hard to
know about it. For the goals and mission of health centers to be achieved then the issues facing the
various categories should be solved. (Catalani., Philbrick, Mechael, & Israelski, 2013).
The affected How they are The relationship between the

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Affected
issues and corporate strategy
and goal
Most important
Issues
patient Lack of privacy of medical records This shows lack respect to
Patients privacy which is against the
Goals of health care centers.
Patients have to complete all forms by hand Its tiresome and does not give
patients ample time especially those
who go to the hospital alone
Misunderstandings between different departments.
For example a pharmacists not being able to
Understand what the doctor has prescribed.
Misunderstandings between colleges
can lead to wrong prescription to a
Patient which can be harmful.
thus services are not quality as they
should be
Drugs are expensive When clinics are selling drugs at a
high price it makes it hard for some
patients to afford thus medical care
Would be adequate.
Long time of finding patients medical records. When a lot of time is wasted looking

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for a patient file it means less time
with the patient thus less information
from the patient which can lead to
inequality services.
Patients can only view their medical records by being
physically in the office
Lack of convenience.
Minor issues
Forgetting after the doctor has given too many
Instructions
Patient understanding
Receptionist being too busy to interpret for all
Patients
Patient understanding
The cost of getting to the office This will reduce patients visits
Clinical staff.
That is; nurses
,doctors ,
pharmacists
Major issues
Unable to read what someone else has written
Poor communication standards
Difficult to compare records hence unable to analyze
trends and patterns of patients diseases
Poor quality medical care
Misfiled records, missing file or taking a lot of time
Finding a file.
Inadequate medical care
Inadequate staff members It contradicts the providence of a pleasing

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working environment
Repeating tests because of loosing data Wasting a lot of time which can lead to po
attendance to patients
Lack of access of all patients records since birth This lead to poor attendance to patients
Minor issues
Lack of time to take training sessions Overworking staff
Medical supplies are low Insufficient drugs and medical appliances
management Major issues
Lack of enough space in the facility
Can lead to disorder in the facility
Inadequate documentation Poor record keeping
When information is gone there is no backup Inadequate treatment information
Health insurance claims are handled manually Mistakes in calculations
Minor
Being overworked and underpaid Unpleasing environment for employees
Afraid of computer technology as it will increase costsInadequate services
All data being stored in one server which can be
corrupted
This can lead to low quality medical
care

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References
Catalani, C., Philbrick, W., Fraser, H., Mechael, P., & Israelski, D. M. (2013). mHealth for HIV
treatment & prevention: a systematic review of the literature. The open AIDS journal, 7,
17.
Kijsanayotin, B., Pannarunothai, S., & Speedie, S. M. (2009). Factors influencing health
information technology adoption in Thailand's community health centers: Applying the
UTAUT model. International journal of medical informatics, 78(6), 404-416.