The Importance Of Health Care Information Systems Integration
Our health care system generates a huge amount of information
. The ability to share that information quickly with other health care providers is vital. Health care information systems integration results in many benefits to medical facilities, medical professionals and to the patients themselves. Mobilizing patient medical information through electronic means should be the goal of our entire health care system.
Why Integration is Vital
Health care information systems integration saves money in the long run through the enabling of information sharing. This eliminates the duplication of services, prevents redundancy in equipment and the maintenance of the equipment, and reduces the staffing needs within individual medical facilities.
The incidence of mistakes is greatly reduced. If information is inputted into a patients account at many locations, it's possible that errors can be made, including different types of errors at various locations. If the information is entered correctly in one central database, errors are greatly reduced. If there are errors in the medical records, it's much easier to correct them at their origin.
The savings in time when health care information systems are integrated is enormous. Medical information does not have to be entered again, but simply retrieved from its original source. Employee compensation is greatly reduced and numbers of personnel can be kept to a minimum.
Better patient care results when health care information is integrated. It can be accessed quickly by medical personnel, the risk of errors is greatly diminished, and the patient's health care costs can be lowered. Most importantly, the quality of patient care can be greatly improved as well as response times to patients' needs.
Barriers to Integration
However, accomplishing the integration of health care information is a daunting task. Even though the health care industry realizes that integration is beneficial, actually bringing it about is not easy. Individual facilities have their own systems in place. Changing them is difficult and can result in a great amount of confusion, retraining for employees, down time, and large financial outlays. The solution is an HL7 interface engine.
Definition of Interface Engine HL7: What is HL7?
Health Level Seven International (HL7) was founded in 1987 with the goal of integrating the sharing and retrieval of electronic health information worldwide. Interface engine HL7 is an integration engine built specifically for the health care community. It connects information systems already in place through standard messaging protocol software. The "legacy" systems are able to communicate with each other through the use of the interface engine HL7 software, without major re-investment in new technology. In addition, medical facilities have the opportunity to link to outsourced services, such as radiology.
Selecting and Implementing an HL7 Interface Engine
When selecting the HL7 provider, medical facilities must look for one with a track record of stability and proven systems for working with many standards.
There are many HL7 providers, but selecting the best one is important for the individual medical facilities. In general, HL7 software should:
* Identify potential problems at the outset
* Provide project consulting
* Offer upgrades on a regular basis
Training
In addition, the company providing the HL7 interface engine should provide training to the facility's staff so that all of the software features can be fully utilized by the team working with the interface engine.
Ongoing Support
HL7 integration doesn't end with the initial installation. Upgrades will be needed on a regular basis. Training should be ongoing as well. The HL7 provider should be viewed as an integral part of the facility's staff.
The integration of health care information is the most important achievement in the improvement of patient care, with HL7 being the objective of the entire medical community.
by: William Hauselberg
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