Theory of Health Informatics

THEORY OF HEALTHCARE INFORMATICS 1
Theory of Health Informatics
Student’s Name
Institution Affiliate
Date

THEORY OF HEALTHCARE INFORMATICS 2
Introduction to the Theory in Health Informatics
The absence of focus by the healthcare providers on the patients and too much
concentration on the computer screen could be as a result of inadequate training of the officers.
A study has indicated that most of the healthcare providers in the healthcare facilities do not have
the knowledge of certain computer basic skills (Shin, 2017). Thus they cannot properly
understand the electronic health records. The nature of the computer charting is another issue
which causes too much attention of the healthcare officers on the computer screens instead of the
patients. It has been argued that some of the computer chartings are seriously complicated thus
difficult to comprehend by the health officers (Coiera, 2015). The computer charting may
sometime require knowledge of an expert in the specific area, and this is one of the key issues
that make the healthcare officers shift to focus on to computer screen.
The electronic health records generally result in improved patient care and the work lives
of the family physicians. The medical knowledge over the past few years has increased thus
making available more treatment options; patients, therefore, can live longer than expected as
well as deal with a variety of chronic conditions. To understand the various needs of different
patients, there is the need for more sources of information and a good relationship which is only
available in the electronic health records (Tierney et al., 2015). Additionally, there is a need for a
variety of tools which allows for access to information. Based on that it can, therefore, be
concluded that the implementation of the EHRs does not result in the suffering of the patients,
but it instead enhances the quality of life of various patients in healthcare facilities.
Clicking boxes in the charting of an EHR typically do not provide adequate details on
events, condition, and the patients. Such an argument is based on the fact that the clicking boxes
causes click fatigue among the healthcare professionals. The quality of documentation of

THEORY OF HEALTHCARE INFORMATICS 3
information relating to the patient's decreases due to the increased number of dialog boxes which
is used for recording of information. The click fatigue caused by the clicking boxes in an EHR is
associated with alert fatigue which is exhibited by the bombardment of the clinicians with certain
non-vital reminders. Such alert fatigue increases patient safety hazards.It is important that during
the design of the EHR software, it is assessed carefully because they can reduce the compliance
of the physicians with the standards of care. Moreover, there will be adequate information
documented in the EHR when such clicking boxes are removed (DeVore, 2015).
EHRs contains vital information about different patients which are considered critical for
tracking the progress of such patients. However, the types of information are numerous. The
three types of data tracked by the organizations using EHRs include, processed, structured and
unstructured data (Subbiah, 2018).
Unstructured data type: Is an information that either does not have a pre-defined data
model or is not organized in a pre-defined manner (Wolfinbarger, 2015). Unstructured data is
typically text-heavy but may contain data such as dates, numbers and facts producing consults,
emails and multimedia resources.
Unstructured data tool can glean actionable information that can help an organization
succeed in a competitive environment. Also, it helps in retrieving potential history, to reduce
cases of readmission of data and for the massive misinterpretation of data, the article warns the
user before execution
The organization tasked with the tracking of data is the Identification System Group
(ISG). It is a nationwide collective of experts whose primary role is to offer a variety of solutions