IT in Health Care
Electronic Health Records
Tracks health information
Medical history
Diagnoses
Allergies and Medications
Treatment plans
Managed by providers
Benefits to providers
Improved quality of care
Easier to read documents and notes because it is all electronic.
Works in conjunction with other EHRs
Job Positions
Information technician: Storing data, organizing patient records, updating databases and insurance records
Medical coder: works with insurance claims to make sure information is being processed correctly and the information itself is correct.
Systems analysist: works with organizations computer systems, actively looking for improvements
Informatics
"Study of the structure, behavior, interactions of natural and engineered computational systems"
Not the same as IT
Biomedical informatic
"interdisciplinary, scientific field that studies and pursues the effective uses of biomedical data, information, and knowledge for scientific inquiry, problem solving, and decision making, motivated by efforts to improve human health"
Uses theories and application of storage, retrieval, and use of biomedical data, information, and knowledge
Clinical Informatics
"How data is acquired, structured, stored, processed retrieved, analyzed, presented, and communicated...transforms data into useable actionable information"
Personal Health Records
Patient Benefits
Patient portals allow patients to have access to their information, less lack of communication
Not as many forms that need to be repeatedly filled out
E-prescriptions; directly goes to pharmacy of choice, easier communication between parties
You control what goes in
"Outside the office" tracking
Apple watch, fit bit, any other exercise tracker are examples of collecting personal health information, makes documenting and reporting to doctors easier
Telehealth
Virtual visits help patients meet with providers, easier access
Covid response
Work with PHR to document symptoms