The Impact of Clinical Information Systems and Telehealth

This report delves into the realm of clinical information systems (CIS) and telehealth, examining their pivotal roles in modern healthcare. It elucidates the positive impacts of CIS, such as improved data management, enhanced communication between healthcare personnel and patients, and better decision-making processes. The report also explores the benefits of telehealth, including increased access to healthcare services, especially in remote areas, while acknowledging the associated challenges like technical and practical issues. Furthermore, it discusses the future implementation of telehealth, emphasizing the need for government support, integrated IT networks, and addressing regulatory and reimbursement practices. The report concludes with an evidence-based analysis, highlighting research supporting the positive outcomes of CIS and telehealth, and reflecting on the author's personal experiences within the healthcare sector, including the challenges faced by patients regarding access and follow-up care. References are provided to support the claims.

Running Head: CLINICAL INFORMATION SYSTEM
CLINICAL INFORMATION SYSTEM
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1CLINICAL INFORMATION SYSTEM
Introduction
Clinical information system refers to the large amount of data that is computerized
and managed by the database for the processing of patient data so that the healthcare systems
can support the patient care (Faden et al., 2013). The system is widely used by the healthcare
personnel so that they can access the patient data in a more organized manner that will help
them to plan, evaluate and implement the required changes. Clinical information system
addresses area such as the training, research, electronic medical records (EMRs) or the
decision of the clinical personnel (Dorsey & Topol, 2016). The use of the clinical information
system also provides with certain benefits such as the ease of accessing the data, acquiring
more structure information and along with that it helps to provide drug in a much more
structured manner. It also emphasizes on the safety of the patients as it promotes appropriate
and adequate use of the pharmaceutics and also imposes certain regulations on the dosing of
drugs (Sittig & Singh, 2015).
Discussion
Positive Impact of CIS
There are a number of advantages of using CIS in the healthcare system that helps in
the better administration of the matters related to patients and patient care. The proper
management of the patient and their data is a juggling task for the doctors as well as the other
hospital staff and thus CIS helps to reduce the burden by organizing the workloads as the
system draws all the necessary patient information to an electronic platform which can be
seen by the clinicians at the bedside of a patient (Bentley et al., 2014). The other benefits of
the system are he improved communication between the health personnel and the patient as
the ease of access of information that contains all the past patient records and details help to
ease the communication among the patient and the doctors. It also provides the doctors with

2CLINICAL INFORMATION SYSTEM
the necessary information that is needed to make any kind of decision that will improve the
health of the patient by creating an impact on the diagnosis process of the patient (Mars &
Scott, 2017). As the entire system is electronic it makes it easier for the patient to get all the
scans and x-rays when they are needed by either the patients or the doctors. It also
encourages to get the better quality of reports and scans that makes the analysis of the patient
condition much better. It also allows the better clinical research. CIS systems are available at
the intensive care unit that allows the doctors to make the right decisions at the right time and
the continuous monitoring of the critical patients also generate a large amount of data
(Gilman & Stensland, 2013).
Role of telehealth
Telehealth refers to the use of digital information along with the communication
technologies that give better access to the healthcare services even at the remote areas. It
involves the use of mobile devices and computers that can manage our health even if the
patient is at their house (Van Dyk, 2014). These technologies can be used at home or by the
doctors itself in order to provide support or improve the healthcare services. It is a non-
conventional way of providing the healthcare services that differ from the traditional ways. It
is the most basic form of e-health as it only requires access to telecommunications.
The pros of using telehealth involves the fact that the well-structured telehealth
scheme can cause the improvement of the healthcare access and the patient outcome
specifically for the patients who are suffering from chronic diseases and also for the patients
who belong to the vulnerable groups. They help to reduce the demands on the already over
crowed facilities at the hospitals and clinics and also makes them affordable to a larger
section of people (Tuckson, Edmunds & Hodgkins, 2017).

3CLINICAL INFORMATION SYSTEM
Telehealth also experiences a number of disadvantages due to the difficulty in
technical and practical problems. Telehealth requires restructuring of the IT staff and also
requires a lot of money for buying and restructuring the equipment (Gilman & Stensland,
2013). The medical and other staff needs to be well-trained so that they can handle the
requirements of the patients and can also deal with the patient demands at the time of adverse
scenario. As the telehealth service is provided by a random healthcare provider, all the
records might not be available with the primary care provider during later visits and that
creates a gap between the patient and their doctors (Mars & Scott, 2017).
Future Implementation of telehealth
As ensuring the health of all the citizens is a prime function of the Government thus,
they should make certain efforts in order to make the healthcare services much more
affordable, accessible and responsive. It is acting as a ray of hope for the rural areas and the
developing countries as it will help them to get better quality of care at affordable prices (Van
Dyk, 2014). However, the use of telehealth at such areas need access to internet long with a
huge capital investment. This will need integrated service of the IT network that helps them
to create proper network services and also to break the barrier that helps to create uniformity
for accessing the facilities of healthcare (Tuckson, Edmunds & Hodgkins, 2017). The
technology shows lot of efficacy and is also available readily it has supposed to show positive
impact in the future. However, it is facing a number of challenges in the face of clinical
practice due to the regulatory and reimbursement practices. The provider of the service needs
to be an authorized person and the use of the site of the telehealth should be done at the
licensed origin (Totten et al., 2016).
The next challenge faced by telehealth implementation is the reimbursement of the
services. The company or authorized person only provides video consultation free to the
patients who are living at far-away places and the reimbursement issues are different with

4CLINICAL INFORMATION SYSTEM
private payers. The implementation of the telehealth thus, faces a number of challenges in
terms of the payment as well as the about the health plan or products that is being used by the
patient or being provided by the companies associated with telehealth distribution (Mars &
Scott, 2017).
Evidence-based analysis
There has been a number of research that shows the involvement of CIS or telehealth
in providing positive patient outcome and also to change the traditional telehealth services
with the new and the non-conventional healthcare methods. Research has shown that the use
of the telemedicine are much more useful in providing the required amount of drug that
should be taken by the patients (Gilman & Stensland, 2013). As a member of the healthcare
team I have experienced a number of changes in the healthcare sector in terms of the services.
Now the introduction of telehealth and CIS has given the patients accessibility to a large
number of healthcare services and along with that the people who belong to the vulnerable
community. I have also seen that the services sometimes create a problem as the people who
cannot pay the required amount are not eligible to get the entire consultation and are just
applicable of the video consultation (Dinesen et al., 2016). Then there are people who are
facing trouble regarding the follow-up checkup as the reports are not available with the
patients and also with the primary care clinicians as it has been recorded at the e-platform
(Bentley et al., 2014).
Conclusion
Thus, the conclusion that can be drawn from the report suggest that the clinical
information system provides a very vast platform for the assessment and the treatment of the
patients who either stay at isolated or remote areas. This system also sheds the work load of
the nurses and the clinicians as the large amount of data generated by the patient is stored in

5CLINICAL INFORMATION SYSTEM
electronic media that helps in better management of the data and also in better analysis of
patient situation.
References
Bentley, C. L., Mountain, G. A., Thompson, J., Fitzsimmons, D. A., Lowrie, K., Parker, S.
G., & Hawley, M. S. (2014). A pilot randomised controlled trial of a Telehealth
intervention in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: challenges of
clinician-led data collection. Trials, 15(1), 313.
Dinesen, B., Nonnecke, B., Lindeman, D., Toft, E., Kidholm, K., Jethwani, K., ... &
Gutierrez, M. (2016). Personalized telehealth in the future: a global research
agenda. Journal of medical Internet research, 18(3), e53.
Dorsey, E. R., & Topol, E. J. (2016). State of telehealth. New England Journal of
Medicine, 375(2), 154-161.
Faden, R. R., Kass, N. E., Goodman, S. N., Pronovost, P., Tunis, S., & Beauchamp, T. L.
(2013). An ethics framework for a learning health care system: a departure from
traditional research ethics and clinical ethics. Hastings Center Report, 43(s1), S16-
S27.
Gilman, M., & Stensland, J. (2013). Telehealth and Medicare: payment policy, current use,
and prospects for growth. Medicare & medicaid research review, 3(4).
Mars, M., & Scott, R. E. (2017). Being spontaneous: The future of telehealth
implementation?. Telemedicine and e-Health, 23(9), 766-772.
Sittig, D. F., & Singh, H. (2015). A new socio-technical model for studying health
information technology in complex adaptive healthcare systems. In Cognitive
informatics for biomedicine(pp. 59-80). Springer, Cham.

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Totten, A. M., Womack, D. M., Eden, K. B., McDonagh, M. S., Griffin, J. C., Grusing, S., &
Hersh, W. R. (2016). Telehealth: mapping the evidence for patient outcomes from
systematic reviews.
Tuckson, R. V., Edmunds, M., & Hodgkins, M. L. (2017). Telehealth. New England Journal
of Medicine, 377(16), 1585-1592.
Van Dyk, L. (2014). A review of telehealth service implementation
frameworks. International journal of environmental research and public
health, 11(2), 1279-1298.