Assessing the Impact of Electronic Health Record Systems Implementation on Hospital Patient Perceptions of Care

The delivery of health care services has been impacted by advances in Knowledge Management Information Systems (KMIS) and Information Technology (IT). The literature reveals that Electronic Health Records Systems (EHRs) are a comprehensive KMIS. There is a wide recognition in the body of knowledge that demonstrates the potential of EHRs to transform all aspects of health care services and, in consequence, the performance of Health Care Delivery Organizations (HCDO). Authors of published research also agree that there is a need for more empirical contributions that demonstrate the impact of EHRs upon HCDO. It is argued that in most cases, studies have been deployed with very limited data or in a specific health care setting. Small gains in performance and mixed results have made difficult to conclusively demonstrate a significant effect of EHRs on the quality of health care services. This study contributes to the knowledge base by empirically assessing the link between a hospital\u27s level of implementation of EHRs and patients\u27 perceptions of the quality of health care services through the analysis of 2,036 hospitals. Findings reveal that the level of implementation of EHRs has a positive impact, both on the percentage of patients who are willing to recommend the hospital to family and friends, and on the percentage of patients who give high ratings based on their last stay in the hospital

A preliminary open source software infrastructure for the health sector in the UAE

Information Technology (IT) is the key to ensuring that health care information is accessible when and where it is needed, and to supporting personal health, health care decision making, and health system sustainability. IT is making steady progress toward linking all aspects of patient care - it is the future of healthcare provision and it is growing fast. However, spending on new medical technology is considered a leading contributor to the increase in overall health spending. The development of IT systems in the health industry is often a high-cost venture. One way to address the problem of cost, and hence to improve the quality of the services provided by these systems, is to consider making IT applications available with no licensing fees through the Open Source Software community. This paper presents the initial development of a preliminary Open Source Software platform containing software that meets user requirements in the health sector. This platform is different from other medical Open Source Software, in that it integrates free open-source applications which range from operating systems to email systems. The paper also highlights the financial advantages of introducing Open Source Software and its positive impact on the quality of health services

Briefing to the incoming Minister of Health 2014

Executive summary This briefing provides you, as the incoming Minister, with information on challenges and opportunities facing the New Zealand health and disability system, and how the Ministry can advise and support you to implement your Government’s priorities for health. The Ministry looks forward to discussing with you how to progress your health policies, including: providing high-quality health services; healthy communities; a strong and engaged health workforce; quality aged care and mental health services. The New Zealand health and disability sector provides world-class services, is driven by a trusted, passionate and skilled workforce, across a spectrum of public, NGOs and private providers, and serves a population that can generally access the care it needs, when it needs it. There are, however, many pressures and environmental changes that require both immediate management and longer-term strategic change. As Minister, you have a number of levers at your disposal to guide system change through setting policy direction, legislation and regulations, funding models and performance management, as well as influencing culture and leadership. Every New Zealander will, at some point in their lives, rely on our health and disability system. It is a large and complex system with multiple decision-makers and mixed public and private ownership models. It operates in a dynamic, continually changing environment characterised by well-known global and local challenges, including:   changing population health needs and burden of disease (especially the rising impact of long- term conditions and risk factors, such as diabetes and obesity)   the growing impact of health-care associated infections, antimicrobial resistance and emerging infectious diseases, eg, Ebola   rapid advances in technology, developments in personalised medicine and changing public expectations   an ageing population, and a workforce that is ageing along with the population   a constrained funding environment for the foreseeable future   a growing fiscal sustainability challenge as health consumes an increasing proportion of total government expenditure. These challenges are placing pressure and new demands on the way public health and disability services are currently delivered. Significant gains in the overall health of New Zealanders could be achieved by concentrating on people who have poorer health outcomes, complex health needs or who need a stronger voice. These might include vulnerable children, older people, people with long-term conditions, people with mental health and addiction problems and people with disabilities. Health and disability services need to build on current progress and adapt to future needs. The health system’s ability to provide a sustainable, quality public health service depends on keeping ahead of the challenges. This briefing provides some suggestions for where we could work with you to meet these challenges. There are opportunities to make better use of existing resources, people, facilities and funding, through new ways of delivering services that keep people well with better prevention and early Briefing to the Incoming Minister of Health v intervention. Significant gains could be made by developing a longer-term focus on preventing disability and illness in the first place. There are new opportunities for the health workforce to work in different ways with a broader range of colleagues across the health and wider social sectors, and with partners in the community. To better equip the New Zealand health and disability system for the future, we suggest focusing on four areas. 1  Better integrate services within health and across the social sector: Strengthening integration within health and across government to support the most vulnerable, reduce inequities and address issues outside the health and disability system that impact on health. 2  Improve the way services are purchased and provided: Ensuring funding models support change, building and supporting the key enablers and drivers of change: workforce, health information and capital. 3  Lift quality and performance: Driving performance through measuring and rewarding the right things to improve quality. 4  Support leadership and capability for change: Supporting strong governance, clinical and executive leadership and capability across the health sector.&nbsp

The Strategic Role of E-Commerce in the Supply Chain of the Healthcare Industry

The intent of this research paper is to explore the future role of e-commerce in the health care industry. The impact of e-commerce on the supply chain of the health care industry will be emphasized. The paper will be separated into what role e-commerce plays from the consumers’ point of view and at the various levels within the health care industry. With the aging of the population in the United States and other countries, rising health care costs have been a major issue in the respective economies. Efficiency gains within the industry have been attributed to the application of information technology and, most specifically, the Internet. E-commerce as a relatively new technology, if deployed properly, could have significant impact in the cost of the overall delivery of health care. The deployment/maintenance of patient-centered databases will become more manageable. The sensitive issue of patient information will be escalated with the advancement of e-commerce. These and other issues will also be discussed. Special discussion will be included focusing on the lower end of the supply chain, the private provider (physician office), from B2B and B2C points of view. The overall impact on the supply chain in the health care industry will be more than just improvements in efficiency. It will have a fundamental impact on the quality of health services provided and the quality of life. The authors will present surveys on the abovementioned topics and related issues in this research paper

e-Health Application, Implementation and Challenges: A Literature Review

Background: World Health Organization, through a partnership with European Union, encourages the implementation e-health systems. E-health is a relatively old concept that is upgraded with new technologies and is directed toward monitoring different health conditions with the help of technology. Objectives: This paper\u27s main objective is to demonstrate e-health application possibilities in today’s healthcare organisations and its impact on the quality of provided health care services using ISO/TR 14639 Health informatics Capacity-based eHealth architecture roadmap. Methods/Approach: In this paper, we used the e-health architecture model for literature review based on individual areas of the model - ICT infrastructure, e-health infastructure, health process domain components, governance and national ownership. Results: Research confirms that new technologies have a favourable and significant impact on population health; however, more developed countries show a better understanding of the concept and are moving towards implementing laws and regulations for e-health practices. Conclusions: Through this research, we concluded that new technology significantly impacts health, but this impact is limited due to different development of countries. That is why it is very important to develop health literacy, which is the ability to comprehend, access, retrieve, and use health information or health services

Editorial note: The key elements of the future smart cities

One of the key elements of the future smart cities is automation and utilisation of robotic system technology. It is believed that not in the far future that home automation, healthcare, telecare, digitised technology and assisted living technology will make a real impact in our quality of life, especially for older adults with long term condition. Older adults to live independently and have a good quality of life is quite a challenge, since the majorly of them have long term health condition diseases. Health services providers across EU and overall the world, informal and formal carer plays major roles in providing the necessary services and support. Diseases on older adults society are one of the leading causes of death, from which thousands of people die every year. Many of the non-communicable diseases can be prevented by tackling associated risk factors. The cost of treatment of such diseases in the EU only is estimated to be over 70% of the Health Service budget. Treatment includes home-care, medication, consultation and many other relevant services. However, these services are still not adequate, due to the lack of implemented automation and robotic systems technology that enable the older adults to manage their daily life activities independently, taking medications, receive the necessary health services on time, which, in many cases leads to loss of lives and waste of NHS resources. Daily life activities management and telehealth remote monitoring system is one of the potential innovative approaches, to improve the older adult’s quality of life, help live independently, improve NHS services, sustain its economic growth and improve social development. It is a rapidly developing concept where daily life activities, health condition, medical information is transferred through interactive data, and audio visual media and shared between services provider, informal and formal carer. In this 4th issue and 2nd issues the journal a selection of some of these technological challenges facing the automation industry are presented and some of the inventive researcher pioneering solutions and findings are introduced

Environmental quality conditions in Fairbanks, Alaska, 1972

Published by The Institute of Water Resources and The Institute of Social, Economic and Government Research Fairbanks, AlaskaThis study represents a starting point for investigating the nature and interconnectivity of environmental quality problems in Fairbanks in the 1970's. Since the Fairbanks flood of 1967, no detailed survey of environmental quality conditions has been conducted despite the impact of the flood, the considerable expansion of the city limits, and the population expansion (anticipated and actual) associated with the oil pipeline. The study focuses on selective aspects of environmental quality of continuing and increasing concern to Fairbanks area residents and also to the city and borough governments. Specifically, the issues analyzed are (1) the environmental setting of the area, (2) structures, especially housing conditions, (3) premise conditions, and (4) waste control. Much of the data was derived from a program called NEEDS, an acronym for Neighborhood Environmental Evaluation and Decision System. NEEDS was developed by the Bureau of Community Environmental Management of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare for rapid gathering of environmental, health, and social information in urban areas.1 The NEEDS survey design consists of two separate stages. Stage I is concerned with collecting general environmental quality information to determine geographically where the most pronounced environmental health problems exist in a given urban area. Stage II consists of detailed interviews with residents of the identified "problem areas" to determine the exact nature of existing health and environmental problems, e.g., housing, health, availability of services, and attitudes regarding existing government (local, state, and federal) programs. With this information, local officials could begin to reorganize existing programs and/or develop new programs to solve some of the interrelated environmental quality problems in the disadvantaged sections of their cities.The work upon which this report is based was supported by funds provided by the State of Alaska, the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, the United States Public Health Service, and the Office of Water Research and Technology

Health Technology in Ontario: Report to the Ontario Health Review Panel

Technology refers to the body of knowledge concerning the conversion of inputs into outputs. The health-care system produces health-care services. Health-care services in turn, in conjunction with the activities of the patient, her genetic endowment, and a considerable amount of random variation, produce changes in health status in the patient. Improvements in health status are valued by the patient, both intrinsically because health is a basic component of quality of life and because improved health status enhances other production and consumption activities. The desired outcome of the use of health-care resources is improvements in health status that are important to the consumers of health-care services, the patients. Health technology affects this outcome indirectly through the production of health-care services. The indirect nature of the impact invites a focus on process, rather than outcome, that is reflected in practice throughout most of the health-care system. It also suggests challenges in evaluating health-care technologies. New health-care technologies may represent improvements over existing technologies in one of several ways. Potentially favourable effects may occur when the new technology represents an improvement in quality of existing services or when it represents a less costly method of obtaining the same outcome with no sacrifice in quality. The new technology may also add a whole new capability to the system. Less favourable effects are obtained when new technologies represent no improvement, are more costly yet generate no improvement over existing methods, or add new capabilities that have no effect on health outcomes. A major challenge for the Ontario health-care system is the early identification of which pattern among these is likely to occur as each new technology becomes available. Although the Ontario health-care system has done relatively well at containing excessive adoption of many important new technologies, it is not clear that the mix of technologies chosen and the subsequent utilization patterns have obtained the greatest value for the level of expenditures. One of the major themes developed in this Report is the need for more thorough clinical and economic evaluation before widespread adoption. The second and third themes follow as implications of that strategy. A heavier reliance on evaluation will generate demands for rigorous and timely information. That information, however, will have little impact unless key actors within the health-care system are given the incentives to use it wisely. Because technology is at the core of the production process for health services, technology policy cannot be divorced from other policy initiatives aimed at rationalizing health-care delivery. In the sections that follow, a foundation will be laid by discussing definitions and characteristics of technologies, examining typical patterns of diffusion of new technologies, briefly reviewing current policy in Ontario, and considering the role of new technologies in increasing health-care costs. The fundamentals of an evaluative strategy to establish clinical effectiveness and economic efficiency will then be developed, and their implications explored. Social and ethical issues are then discussed and finally, conclusions are drawn.

Extending information system models to the health care context: An empirical study and experience from developing countries

© 2017, Zarka Private University. All rights reserved. This study aims to evaluate Hospital Information Systems (HIS) and their impact on end-user performance and the health care services in two developing countries. A survey methodology was used to gather empirical data for model validation and hypothesis testing. A correlation and factor analysis were conducted to test the reliability and validity of the study instrument. The structural equation modelling technique was also used to evaluate the measurement and the structural models. The results confirmed the significance of the integrated model in explaining user performance and demonstrated that our model can better represent factors associated with user performance and health care services; our model was able to explain 74% of the variance in user performance and 52% of the variance in the health care services. The study indicated the need to consider the context of the HIS when using models like the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the information systems success model. Some information systems factors have become more relevant, such as System Quality (SQ) and Task-Technology Fit (TTF). Others have different implications, including ease of use and usefulness, indicating the need to adapt these models based on the context of the system under study