Health Information Exchange Policy Statement: Norfolk Health System

This assignment provides a comprehensive Health Information Exchange (HIE) policy statement tailored for the Norfolk Health System. The policy begins with a statement of purpose, emphasizing the governance of HIE usage and the protection of patient information. It outlines underpinning principles, values, and philosophies, including transparency, data integrity, and accountability. Objectives are set to standardize information exchange, improve healthcare quality, enhance patient rights, increase care efficiency, and ensure personal information security. Strategies to achieve these objectives include implementing electronic information systems and continuous monitoring of patient-provider relationships. Specific actions involve state audits and evaluation of electronic systems. Desired outcomes focus on data integrity, security, and improved patient care. Performance indicators like internal and external audits are proposed, along with a review cycle of one year. The policy concludes with an evaluation of its impact on healthcare, highlighting its potential to improve patient outcomes, data security, and the overall quality of care, emphasizing the importance of protecting patient rights and reducing misuse of information. The report includes references to supporting literature.

HEALTH INFORMATION
EXCHANGE POLICY STATEMENT
ASSIGNMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Statement of purpose.......................................................................................................................1
Underpinning principles, values and philosophies..........................................................................1
Objectives........................................................................................................................................1
Strategies to achieve each objective................................................................................................2
Specific actions................................................................................................................................2
Desired outcomes.............................................................................................................................3
Performance indicators....................................................................................................................3
Review cycle....................................................................................................................................3
Evaluation of impact of the policy on healthcare............................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

Statement of purpose
The main purpose of this policy is to form applicability of policies and procedures found
within Norfolk Health System Health Information Exchange Policy and will also help in defining
user access, Patient Opt In/Out Rights, Breach and Accountings of Disclosures. Other than this,
this policy will also help in explaining underlying principles, philosophies and values.
Underpinning principles, values and philosophies
Main principles associated with Health Information Exchange Policy are:
 Transparency and openness: there is requirement of a general policy of openness about
develop practises and policies (Adler-Milstein, Lin & Jha, 2016).
 Collection Limitation: Health information of a person should only be collected for a specific
purpose and should be obtained lawfully and fairly.
 Use limitation: personal data of a patient should not be disclosed, made available to others
until and unless it is required to be used for a specific purpose and that purpose should be
specified.
 Data integrity and quality: All kinds of personal data collected should be relevant to a
specific purpose for which they are required to be used and should be complete, accurate and
current.
 Accountability and Oversight: All the entities in control of a person’s personal health or data
must be held accountable for implementing these information practises.
 Remedies: All kinds of financial and legal remedies must exist to address any kind of
security breaches and privacy violations.
 Security Safeguards and Controls: personal data if a patient should be protected by
reasonable security safeguards against various kinds of risks such as unauthorized access,
loss of data, modification, disclosure, destruction and many more.
Objectives
Main primary objectives of Norfolk Health System Health Information Exchange Policy
are:
 To validate set of standards that will enable health information exchange regardless of
hardware and software platforms used.
 To improve healthcare quality as well as patient’s outcomes by reducing medication and
medical errors.
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 To reduce unnecessary test and services and focus on enhancing Patient Opt In/Out Rights.
 To increase efficiency of care of the patients and enhance their access to medical facilities.
 To increase personal information security by reducing unauthorised access or data loss.
Strategies to achieve each objective
There are various kinds of strategies that can be used for achieving above defined
objectives and can help in fulfilling main purpose of the Health Information Exchange. Some of
the main strategies that can be used for achieve above defined objectives are as follows:
 An electronic information system can be implemented. This system will help the Norfolk
Health System to reduce security breaches, reduce changes of unauthorized access and will
also help in increasing personal information privacy and security (Edaibat, Dever & Stuban,
2017). This system will also help in monitoring and checking efficiency of patient’s care.
 Relationship between patients and their health care providers or health care professionals
should be continuously monitored as it would help them to check whether effective patient
care is being provided to the patients or not, or whether Patient Opt In/Out Rights are not
being violated. This continuous monitoring of healthcare professionals can also help reducing
medication and medical errors, and increase patient’s outcome.
Specific actions
In order to use above strategies in an appropriate manner there are some specific actions
that are required to be taken which will help achievement or fulfilment of desired objectives in
an appropriate manner. Some of the specific actions required to be taken are as follows: By
allowing state authorities to conduct an audit so that effective monitoring of healthcare
professionals and health care providers can be done (Esmaeilzadeh & Sambasivan, 2016). This
will help Norfolk Health System to check whether any kind of security breeches has been done
or not or whether proper patient is being provided to the patients or not. Other than this
evaluation of electronic information system should be done in order to check speed, quality,
safety and cost of patient care and many more.
Desired outcomes
Each action taken has a desired outcome for which action is taken. These desired
outcomes help in achievement of defined objectives in many ways. Some of the desired
outcomes of actions are as follows:
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 Data integrity, security and quality: One of the main desired outcomes of these actions is
patient’s data integrity, security and quality (Everson & Butler, 2020). Implementation and
evaluation of electronic information system can help in integrating patient’s personal data or
information with healthcare system. This will further help in increasing overall security of
the data i.e. none kind of unauthorised users will be able to access the data.
 Healthcare professionals will provide better quality care to the patients without violating
they’re in/ out rights.
Performance indicators
Performance indicators that can help in verifying whether desired outcomes have been
achieved or not are as follows: internal and external auditing are one of the main kind of
performance indicators that can help health system to understand whether strategies have been
implemented in an appropriate manner or not or whether desired outcomes have been achieved
or not (Lin, Everson & Adler‐Milstein, 2018). By developing a performance matrix and
measuring overall performance of health care professions overall performance on the basis of
that matrix can help health system to evaluate their performance and check whether desired
outcomes have been achieved or not.
Review cycle
It is important to regularly review policies and procedures on a timely basis so that if any
kind of improvement is required within the policy then it can be identified and required changes
can be brought within the policy. Regular review cycle of this policy is 1 year i.e. in every 1 year
this policy will be reviewed and any kind issue or loopholes within the policy can be identified.
In order to regularly review the policy yearly a specific procedure is required to be followed and
after making required changes again documentation should be done.
Evaluation of impact of the policy on healthcare
It can be said that health information exchange has been identified as one of effective
solution for bringing improvement within overall patient’s safety, their data or information
precaution and enhancing overall quality care. This policy on healthcare can helps in impacting
overall healthcare system in a positive manner and can help overall quality care of individuals or
patients in a positive manner. Mainly this policy will impact overall health outcomes of the
patients and will bring improvement within the way in which personal data or information should
be collected, used or implemented. Misuse or unauthorized access to the information can be
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reduced. It has also been evaluated that healthcare policy not only impact overall healthcare
quality that is provided to the patients but it also impacts overall way in which health care
professionals provide quality care to the patients or handle their personal information. It will also
impact the way in which data or information of patients is handled. One of the main impacts that
this policy will have on healthcare system is that it will help in protecting Patient Opt In/Out
Rights and violation of these rights can be reduced because of which unnecessary test or services
can be reduced. In other words, this policy will help in governing health information exchange
use in a positive manner and users access to healthcare can be enhanced, data breech or
unauthorised access can be reduced, Accountings of Disclosures can be done in a better manner.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Adler-Milstein, J., Lin, S. C., & Jha, A. K. (2016). The number of health information exchange
efforts is declining, leaving the viability of broad clinical data exchange uncertain. Health
Affairs. 35(7). 1278-1285.
Edaibat, E. A., Dever, J., & Stuban, S. M. (2017). System dynamics simulation modeling of
health information exchange (HIE) adoption and policy intervention: a case study in the
State of Maryland. Operations Research for Health Care. 12. 60-70.
Esmaeilzadeh, P., & Sambasivan, M. (2016). Health Information Exchange (HIE): A literature
review, assimilation pattern and a proposed classification for a new policy approach.
Journal of biomedical informatics. 64. 74-86.
Everson, J., & Butler, E. (2020). Hospital adoption of multiple health information exchange
approaches and information accessibility. Journal of the American Medical Informatics
Association.
Lin, S. C., Everson, J., & Adler‐Milstein, J. (2018). Technology, incentives, or both? Factors
related to level of hospital health information exchange. Health Services Research. 53(5).
3285-3308.
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