Health Information Technology (HIT) is a significant technological improvement which has already served as a factor in healthcare. Its main types are EMRs and EHRs, which are specified databases of medical information on individuals. Its main purpose is to create a network of information which would function throughout the state. The promising functionality of HIT has attracted media attention, but its eventual implementation faced obstacles such as a lack of technological resources or inability to understand which types of HIT must be used. A different obstacle is more conceptual and represents a difference in approach between industry and medicine. While for industry the main reason to provide HIT is whether it can be produced, medicine constantly raises the question of HIT’s necessity. Thus, HIT technology faces obstruction in production and implementation due lack of technical knowledge and the doubts in its necessity.
Having been implemented in several areas, HIT has already had it influence over different medicine matters. For example, it has improved healthcare in nursing homes, influencing administrator-reported efficiency and efficiency-related outcomes, increasing the speed of providing care, and decreasing regulatory citations. However, there are still areas where HIT faces criticism for having dubious efficiency. While it is useful in nursing homes and with older patients, in other areas of medicine, such as pediatrics, it needs modifications for successful service delivery of clinical support in external facilities. Its other flaws include lack of influence over physiological or survival outcomes, being solely effective at delivering care. Thus, HIT faces difficulties not only on the decision-making stage, but in practice, as well. Still, HIT will be a standard in the nearest future because federal health research funding agencies need technological development over electronic health data policies.
References
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