Health Information Exchange - Essay Example

Health Information Organizations (HIOs refer to those organizations which oversee HIE. In order for these HIOs to function notably well, they need to come up with standards that are nationally acceptable, and which enable them to establish confidentiality, security and interoperability of the information selected. This also ensures that there is authority concerning those people who access the information. When HIE systems are established well, a standard interoperable model is established, and it possesses the following adjectives; it is scalable, patient centric, sustainable, reliable and longitudinal.

Health Information Management (HIM) principles are necessary in ensuring that HIEs are a success. HIEs are important in that they are aimed at enhancing patient care, improving patient safety and reducing costs in healthcare. By so doing, healthcare services will be easily accessible by various groups. This also reduces disease incidences since there is free availability of information concerning various health issues. Managers of organizations that offer health care are, thus, advised to implement HIE strategies in the organizations for the benefit of patient care.

There are various stakeholders of HIE, but, perhaps the most important are HIM professionals whose role is to spearhead processes that will bring about HIE. Under the HIM professional, we have; patient privacy rights, health care workflow, patient records and federal laws, hence, by controlling all these factors, HIM professionals affect HIE directly. It is, therefore, the role of the HIM professional to ensure that all barriers towards achieving noteworthy HIE are countered by facilitating key management processes.

Furthermore, a HIM is expected to take a leadership position in an HIE. Various organizations and companies have taken up the initiative of ensuring that HIE is cultivated extensively in healthcare settings. One such is by AHIMA, an organization that is actively involved in setting standards for HIE improvement in health care settings. The aim of AHIMA is to enhance the knowledge of HIM professionals by bolstering information exchange, provider authentication, patient identification, consent, network security, privacy and consumer engagement.

More recently, AHIMA has appointed a council of Experts to offer guidance to the association of HIE. Furthermore, AHIMA has put forth various resources to address issues and challenges related with HIE. These resources the HIE Consumer Brochure, a model that was created by the HIE Practice Council and Toolkit for State Health Information Exchange. Hospitals are also taking the initiative to enhance HIE. One such example of these initiatives is the Poudre Valley Health System which has come up with a lot of projects which are aimed at upgrading and upgrading electronic health information of patients.

Such initiatives around the state are going to improve service delivery and management of healthcare facilities In the US currently, there are about 234 initiatives that are actively involved in HIE. In fact the government is committed towards this course such that the aim is to achieve Electronic Health reform by the year 2014. Recently, the HITECH legislation has ensured that there is adequate funding and expertise which would ensure that noteworthy electronic healthcare is offered to citizens in all government levels – community, state and national levels.

In the current environment, it is