An In-Depth Analysis of Issues and Challenges in Health Informatics

This report delves into the significant challenges faced within the field of health informatics, primarily focusing on the implementation and usability of Healthcare Information Systems (HISs) and Electronic Health Records (EHRs). The report highlights the low adoption rates of these systems among healthcare professionals, attributing this to factors such as a lack of awareness, the time-consuming nature of data entry, and usability problems. It discusses how physicians often find the new computer systems cumbersome, preferring traditional methods, and how the system's inability to recognize slight errors and the flood of electronic alerts contribute to physician reluctance. The report emphasizes the time spent by doctors on data entry in EHRs, which reduces time spent on patient care. It also addresses medical privacy issues due to data loss and the difficulties physicians face in navigating voluminous and disjointed EHR records. The report concludes that while these software systems have improved patient care and safety, there is a need for defensible and logical records.

Running head: ISSUES, HEALTH INFORMATICS
Issues, health informatics
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1ISSUES, HEALTH INFORMATICS
Healthcare information systems (HISs) have made tremendous and astonishing advances
in the medical technology and treatment procedures with strong impact on the health information
exchange. Despite of the contributions made by HIS in the healthcare organization, the adoption
is low and healthcare professionals face issues while using health information system. One of the
reasons that strain health informaticians' abilities to use HIS is lack of awareness among the
healthcare personnel in understanding the potentials of this health system (Fitterer et al., 2010).
Physicians find it much longer to use the new computer system for data entry instead they
are conformable with pen and paper. Healthcare personnel spend around 80 hours per week;
there is no extra time for the data entry to be done online. They find it difficult to use HIS as it
pose severe limitations on their ability to make clinical judgments. The system is unable to
recognize slight misspelled words and in Los Angeles, United Stated, about $34 million is spent
for the development and deployment of physician order entry system for labs, medications and
procedures. Health informaticians face a flood of excessive questions, electronic reminders and
alerts associated with HIS. As a result, they are burdened with extra load of work and as a result,
physicians are reluctant to use such a system that takes more time for the task completion
(Smelcer, Miller-Jacobs & Kantrovich, 2009).
Electronic Health Records (EHRs) often take long time and makes it difficult for the
health informaticians to work quickly that often result in less productivity. They greatly face
usability problems while working with EHRs as it has long range of functionality due to its
structural navigation. In an article published by The Information Week, it reported that one EHR
takes about 44% of the doctors’ time. A small-scale study conducted in Pennsylvania ER found
that the physicians have to spend more time in inputting data as compared to taking care of
patients. According to the Statistics, doctors spend 28% of time in patient care, 12% in reviewing

2ISSUES, HEALTH INFORMATICS
test records and results and 44% in entering data in EHRs (Readers Write: Healthcare IT vs.
Corporate IT | HIStalk, 2017).
Emergency departments spend more time in entering data in EHRs rather than direct
patient care or any other activity. The factors like typing skills, mainframe responsiveness,
interruptions, extent of training and opportunity for delegation of tasks are some of the
environmental attributes that influence data time entry and affect productivity and hospital
revenue (Freeze et al., 2012). In addition, medical privacy is also an issue associated with data
loss in EHR due to cyber hacks or natural disaster used by health informaticians (Kawamoto et
al., 2009).
EHRs also produce difficult to read and disjointed records for the physicians. It is
difficult for them to grasp the essential facts in EHRs that can become voluminous and difficult
to navigate for them especially during handovers. The point and click templates become difficult
for the physicians and make it dysfunctional software creating a disjointed narrative flow (Paré et
al., 2014). The time for data entry takes away lot of time from seeing more patients and is a
waste of resources. Although, the software have immense enhanced patient care and safety in
health information exchange, there is need for a defensible and good logical records that is
difficult to produce.

3ISSUES, HEALTH INFORMATICS
References
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Healthcare Technology and Management, 12(1), 45-61.
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Kawamoto, K., Lobach, D. F., Willard, H. F., & Ginsburg, G. S. (2009). A national clinical
decision support infrastructure to enable the widespread and consistent practice of
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Paré, G., Raymond, L., de Guinea, A. O., Poba-Nzaou, P., Trudel, M. C., Marsan, J., &
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informatics, 83(8), 548-558.
Readers Write: Healthcare IT vs. Corporate IT | HIStalk. (2017). Histalk2.com. Retrieved 22
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corporate-it/
Smelcer, J. B., Miller-Jacobs, H., & Kantrovich, L. (2009). Usability of electronic medical
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