The Role of Health Information Technology in Patient Safety

This report examines the significant impact of health information technology (IT) on patient safety within healthcare settings. It highlights how IT, encompassing hardware and software, is utilized to manage various hospital and healthcare operations. The report discusses the benefits of computerized order entry systems in reducing medication errors by mitigating issues related to illegible handwriting and communication gaps during patient handovers. Furthermore, it explores the role of bar code medication administration systems in preventing medication errors, leading to improved patient safety and a reduction in adverse incidents. The report references various studies and statistics, including a 57% reduction in medication errors with the use of bar code technology. The conclusion emphasizes the crucial role of IT in improving patient safety by addressing medication errors and enhancing communication among healthcare professionals.

Running head: GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE AND ITS IMPACT
Health Information Technology
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Introduction
The term information technology (IT) in the health care sector mainly refers to the use
of the technology in terms of hardware and software use for managing different types of
works in the hospitals and health care sectors. The use of this technology in the health care
system has made the process of record keeping, data management and sharing the data of the
patients easier (Alotaibi & Federico, 2017).
Search Strategy
For finding the relevant literature, the researchers mainly used the databases such as
Medline, Pubmed, CINAHL, Lexicomp, Ovid.
Discussion
The use of information technology in the health care facilities has greatly impacted
the safety of the patients in the hospital care settings. In this regard, it can be stated that the
use of this technology in the hospital care settings allow the physicians to use the
computerized order entry system by using the mobile or computer. In this regard, it should be
mentioned that the initially this system is invented to reduce the medication errors by the
nurses as in many instances it is reported that the nurses are unable to understand the hand
writing of the doctors and thereby they also fail to deliver proper medicines to the patients
(Singh & Sittig, 2016). Along with this, another crucial problem that is associated with this
issue is the fact that the nurses fail to share all the information during the patient handover
and thus it may possible that the important command may be missed by the health care
professionals. The use of information technology in the health care sectors helps the doctors
to give instructions electronically and chances of overlooking important information by the
nurses are mitigated. Therefore, the the safety of the patients is improved (Alotaibi &

2GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE AND ITS IMPACT
Federico, 2017). Another important component of health information technology is the use of
bar code medication administration system in the hospital care settings. In this regard, it can
be stated that the use of this system for the patient medication process aims to prevent any
type of errors during providing medicines to the patients and as a result, the chances of
adverse incidents can be mitigated. As a consequence of this the cases of patient safety is also
improved (Bowers et al., 2015). In this context, it can be specified that the some software
under this system can provide sound alert to the health care professionals so that they can
give the correct medicines at the right time to the appropriate patients. Improvement of the
medication error cases by the use of this bar code technology is almost 57 per cent that is use
of this system in the hospital care setting is successful in reducing the medication errors by
almost 57 per cent along with a p value of less than 0.001 (p<0.001) (Alotaibi & Federico,
2017).
Definition of Health Information Technology
The use of the technology in the health care sectors through the use of hardware and
software for managing different types of works in the hospitals and health care sectors is
referred to as the health information technology (Alotaibi & Federico, 2017).
Conclusion
Hence, it can be concluded that the use of information technology in the health care
sector has greatly improved the patient safety cases in the health care settings by improving
the medication errors, reducing the communication gaps among the health care professionals.

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References
Alotaibi, Y. K., & Federico, F. (2017). The impact of health information technology on
patient safety. Saudi medical journal, 38(12), 1173.
Bowers, A. M., Goda, K., Bene, V., Sibila, K., Piccin, R., Golla, S., ... & Zell, K. (2015).
Impact of bar-code medication administration on medication administration best
practices. CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing, 33(11), 502-508.
Singh, H., & Sittig, D. F. (2016). Measuring and improving patient safety through health
information technology: The Health IT Safety Framework. BMJ Qual Saf, 25(4), 226-232

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