Information Technology and Healthcare Industry - Essay Example

These standards regulate the electronic exchange of administrative and financial information between healthcare providers and their clearinghouses. The new version of the standards is expected to create a major impact on the functioning of the healthcare industry as it has been designed to enhance the electronic exchange of information related to eligibility, claim submission and their status, electronic remittance, authorization for treatment and referrals. The 5010 standards are to be implemented by software vendors and clearinghouses on January 1, 2012 (American Academy of Dermatology, 2010; Emdeon Business Services, 2010).

The implementation of the 5010 set of standards will be followed by the implementation of a new set of International Classification of Diseases-10 (ICD-10) Clinical Modification codes that replaces the current ICD-9 CM codes. The ICD-10 which consists of more than 68,000 codes with increased specificity and includes details required for classification of morbidity and diagnostic specificity is required to be implemented from October 1, 2013. The additional codes will help reveal more information related to healthcare and hence the complications and outcomes of care can be ascertained easily and issues can be resolved through better design of algorithms (American Academy of Dermatology, 2010).

Thus implementation of both 5010 and ICD-10 standards will help in the delivery of safer and quality healthcare to the people.