Holmes Institute HC1041 Report: IT Impact on Healthcare Industry

This report delves into the significant impact of information technology on the healthcare industry, examining various aspects such as data breaches, security measures, and the overall enhancement of healthcare processes. It highlights the crucial role of IT in improving efficiency, training employees, and providing cost-effective solutions for patient care. The report discusses the benefits of IT, including the introduction of electronic health records, and addresses the associated risks, particularly cyber threats and data privacy concerns. Furthermore, it explores how healthcare organizations monitor and manage IT services, emphasizing the importance of risk management teams and the need for patient safety regulations. The conclusion summarizes the advancements brought about by IT in healthcare, while also providing recommendations for effectively utilizing IT services, including fostering a culture of patient safety and implementing robust security measures. The report uses multiple references to support its findings and recommendations.

Running head: HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY
HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY
Name of Student
Name of University
Author’s Note

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Executive summary
Numerous providers of healthcare had realized the fact that the original role that is
information technology plays in their business. Information technology in the process of
healthcare has contributed in improving the overall process of healthcare. It has also
improved the efficiency of the workers. It has been assumed that the criminals would tend to
get even more creative with the advancement of technology. This would continue even if the
industry is aware of the hackers. These factors had further contributed in increasing the
overall efficiency of the organization. The solution which is provided across all the
organizations has helped in improving the overall services provided to the healthcare
industry.

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Introduction
Information technology is a vital part that is used in almost every field. The field that
is chosen for this report is healthcare. The news which is chosen in this case is the one that
presents various information security breaches that took place in the industry of healthcare
(Ball, Balogh and Miller 2015). The news represents data on the fact that industry of
healthcare had been a major target for the hackers. Some ways by which this industry is
attacked include ransom ware attacks, misconfigured buckets of cloud storage, these attacks
dominate the field (Dimitrov 2016). Not only in the year of 2017, 2018 has also been bad
year for the industry at the executive level. It has been assumed that the criminals would tend
to get even more creative with the advancement of technology. This would continue even if
the industry is aware of the hackers (Mettler 2016). This particular assignment describes
regarding the data breaches that are caused in this particular industry in details.
Body
The industry of healthcare needs the use of information technology, this is because
along with the advancement that has been brought about within the technology had made it
very important for using the information technology in every operation that has been
performed by the industry of healthcare (Sherman, Anderson and Dal Pan 2016). There have
been numerous ways in which the use of information technology is beneficial for the
healthcare industry. One way in which information technology is used include providing
training to employees (Squires and Anderson 2015). Staffs are provided with training along
with various real life examples, it also provides an environment that is risk simulated in
nature. Some of the technologies within the concept of information technology like virtual
reality help in maintaining mental along with physical health of patients (Archenaa and Anita
2015). Information technology provides therapeutic potential along with rehabilitation for

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acute pain and disorders of anxiety. The information technology also helps in providing a
solution that is not only cost effective in nature but also efficient for teaching as well as
treatment.
Information technology id very important for the survival of healthcare industry, this
is because it contributes in removing human error and provides precise results to various
issues faced by the industry (Holloway and Galvin 2016). It also provides flexibility as well
as control and helps in less amount of complications such as infections. Along with these, the
information technology provides numerous benefits to the industry that are unique in nature
and are impossible to achieve with the help of a huge number of workforce (Burwell 2015).
Some technologies help various professionals in the detection of diseases of patients and
provide proper medication as per their age, seriousness of the illness and some similar
aspects.
For the purpose of applying information technology in business, planning is a major
part. For implementing information technology and achieve its benefits, a god planning is
vital. Designing is the second most important in this particular process (Mettler 2016).
Designing the way by which the plan would be carried out is an important aspect. Having
proper resources is another important aspect in this field and proper training to employees is
the last but one of the important aspect that needs to be considered. After the implementation
of information technology, if the staffs would not know to make use of it, it would be
completely useless.
Business of healthcare needs information technology in various methods, these
methods include being the source of information regarding medical. Information technology
also provides a secured and a precise care to patients with less amount of pain or suffering
(O'Doherty, Hegarty and Ramsay 2015). The common way by which IT has brought about

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changes in the industry of healthcare includes introduction of new machines, medicines and
treatment. These help in saving the life of patients who are in critical situation.
Advantages as well as benefits that are provided by information technology to the
industry of healthcare is introduction of healthcare records, maintaining data of patients in
format that is electronic in nature (Dimitrov 2016). This has become vital because
maintaining medical records regularly in a manual format required a lot of time, it requires a
huge effort as well. It decreases the chance of any sort of human error. It increases the
security of data that are related to various patients.
The risks that are brought about with the help of IT in the industry of healthcare is
cyber risk, the implementation of information technology in healthcare industry for
introducing electronic healthcare records had provoked the industry with new exposures to
the privacy of patients data (Sterne, Hernán and Reeves 2016). This is because the records
could be accessed with the help of vendors or nay sort of third party. Along with these, the
industry of healthcare faces great amount of exposure to numerous cyber risks that could
have impacts on various operations like shutting down the critical systems that are related to
health.
Health industry usually monitors as well as manages information technology services
with the use of numerous ways. For monitoring the services of information technology that
are provided to the industry of healthcare, organization would be able to build a specific team
for risk management, this particular team would have various risk managers, they are trained
for handling various critical issues (Archenaa and Anita 2015). The duties which would be
undertaken by various risk mangers is determined by a specific organization. The
professionals would be responsible for working in numerous areas belonging to medical
administration, some administration are finance, claims management as well as insurance,

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incident and event management, emergence preparedness, clinical research, human healthcare
and psychological. All the models would not fit in the solution of risk management
(Holloway, and Galvin 2016). Challenges that have been faced by administration must be
addressed in a specific plan of risk assessment include patient’s safety mandatory federal
regulations, errors in the field of healthcare, future as well as existing policy, legislation that
impacts the entire field of the healthcare.
Conclusion
The utilization of information technology in the field of healthcare results in bringing
about numerous advancements in the entire business. The solution which is provided across
all the organizations has helped in improving the overall services provided to the healthcare
industry. The services of information technology has grown in an exponential way.
Numerous providers of healthcare had realized the fact that the original role that is
information technology plays in their business. Information technology in the process of
healthcare has contributed in improving the overall process of healthcare. It has also
improved the efficiency of the workers. These factors had further contributed in increasing
the overall efficiency of the organization. The utilization of information technology has
resulted in making the overall process of patient care safer and hence making it reliable as
compared to the services that were provided previously.
Recommendation
There are numerous ways using which the industry of healthcare can use information
technology in a proper and effective way, developers of the information technology which are
related to healthcare that is based on home, these usually have inadequate or incomplete
guidance that is related to the content of the product, accessibility, usability and structure for
the purpose of informing evaluation or innovation of personal health records (Mettler 2016).

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Methods which could be used by the industry of healthcare industry for usage of information
technology services effectively include growing a culture that is supportive in nature for
safety of patient population, adapt numerous systems that are present for better quality of
identification of numerous errors in medical improving the entire process of reporting the
medical errors, monitoring of safety in patients regularly and hence take required steps for
improving and making the entire process effective. Some of the recommendations that can be
utilized by the industry of the healthcare for using various services of information technology
are undertaking numerous methods which can contribute in the overall maintenance of
security and privacy of the patients (Dimitrov 2016). This would help the industry to obtain
most from the information technology along with gaining patients’ trust.

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References
Archenaa, J. and Anita, E.M., 2015. A survey of big data analytics in healthcare and
government. Procedia Computer Science, 50, pp.408-413.
Ball, J., Balogh, E. and Miller, B.T. eds., 2015. Improving diagnosis in health care. National
Academies Press.
Burwell, S.M., 2015. Setting value-based payment goals—HHS efforts to improve US health
care. N Engl J Med, 372(10), pp.897-899.
Dimitrov, D.V., 2016. Medical internet of things and big data in healthcare. Healthcare
informatics research, 22(3), pp.156-163.
Dimitrov, D.V., 2016. Medical internet of things and big data in healthcare. Healthcare
informatics research, 22(3), pp.156-163.
Holloway, I. and Galvin, K., 2016. Qualitative research in nursing and healthcare. John
Wiley & Sons.
Mettler, M., 2016, September. Blockchain technology in healthcare: The revolution starts
here. In 2016 IEEE 18th International Conference on e-Health Networking, Applications and
Services (Healthcom) (pp. 1-3). IEEE.
Mettler, M., 2016, September. Blockchain technology in healthcare: The revolution starts
here. In 2016 IEEE 18th International Conference on e-Health Networking, Applications and
Services (Healthcom) (pp. 1-3). IEEE.
O'Doherty, L., Hegarty, K., Ramsay, J., Davidson, L.L., Feder, G. and Taft, A., 2015.
Screening women for intimate partner violence in healthcare settings. Cochrane database of
systematic reviews, (7).

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Sherman, R.E., Anderson, S.A., Dal Pan, G.J., Gray, G.W., Gross, T., Hunter, N.L.,
LaVange, L., Marinac-Dabic, D., Marks, P.W., Robb, M.A. and Shuren, J., 2016. Real-world
evidence—what is it and what can it tell us. N Engl J Med, 375(23), pp.2293-2297.
Squires, D. and Anderson, C., 2015. US health care from a global perspective: spending, use
of services, prices, and health in 13 countries. The Commonwealth Fund, 15(3), pp.1-16.
Sterne, J.A., Hernán, M.A., Reeves, B.C., Savović, J., Berkman, N.D., Viswanathan, M.,
Henry, D., Altman, D.G., Ansari, M.T., Boutron, I. and Carpenter, J.R., 2016. ROBINS-I: a
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