Implementation of Health Data Systems - Essay Example

"Implementation of Health Data Systems" is an incredible example of a paper on the health system.
In the current times, all caregivers are pushing to the mission of being able to provide better health care to more patients at a lower cost. One of the most important ways to accomplish this mission is to involve the widespread involvement of information technology in the provision of healthcare at all levels. For this paper, the discussion will focus on the use of technology in the storage and dissemination of health data in the nursing unit in a hospital setting (Ishtar, 2001).

The nursing department in a hospital carries a lot of information regarding the various details of any patient that visits that health institution. The database in this department stores information ranging from a patient’s details, medical history as well as his or her progression from the commencement of treatment. The location of all patient data in a single application ensures that all the caregivers in the unit can access it at any time. The use of technology in storing healthcare data has numerous benefits to both the patient and the caregiver. For example, from a patient’s perspective, it is very important because they are not required to provide information afresh every time they visit the health institution. On the part of the caregiver, a lot of time is saved since he only enters a specific admission number of the patient and full details appear (Blazey, 2008).

Despite the importance of technological involvement in keeping patients’ data, it is very important to ensure that these data are not accessed by the wrong people to avoid a breach of the privacy policy. Health care data can be accessed by unauthorized individuals both in the health organization as well as by people outside in a manner of ways. First, we must note that there may be malicious people among those who visit the nursing unit and therefore the data should be kept in formats that are only known to the nursing staff. This may involve the use

of special codes or unique software. Besides, health data may find itself in the hands of wrong people in the community through improper security standards of the internet due to leakages. It is therefore imperative for the health facility to install secure internet software in its applications (Ishtar, 2001).

Securely keeping health data comes with its challenges. For example, the unwillingness of the staff to embrace new technological security methods due to getting used to older methods as well as the possible incompatibility of the available equipment with new technologies. The nursing departments of many hospitals have embarked on various ways to ensure data security. For instance, the department can call technology experts into the facility to create and educate the staff on security procedures that can help the department in its quest to ensure data security. Besides, access to the department must be restricted to non-staff. This will ensure that nursing data remains only in its department (Dick, 1997).

Having a security breach of health data in a nursing department may create problems among the patients as such data falling in the wrong hands may result in stigmatization of the involved patients based on their sicknesses or conditions (Blazey, 2008). The patients may lose confidence in the healthcare givers resulting in losses to the entire institution. The employment of sophisticated software in the storage of data may create difficulties in the use of technology by staff. As a result, there should be a balance between data security and ease of use by using technologies that are easy to understand while ensuring maximum data security (Blazey, 2008).