Health Informatics: Technology in Hospitals - Essay Example

"Health Informatics: Technology in Hospitals" is a worthy example of a paper on the health system.
Health informatics also referred to as health information systems, medical informatics, clinical informatics, biomedical informatics, or healthcare informatics is a discipline that deals with computerized devices, resources, and methods that are implemented to optimize the procurement, storage, retrieval, and utilization of information in health. Patient records are very important when offering medical help to patients. There have been problems where the records of hypertension patients get lost in their own hands or at the care of hospital staff. The use of technology in hospitals through health informatics offers a solution to this problem. Another importance is that information technology can help people with hypertension to improve their blood pressure.

Technology with the use of computers or computer-held devices is very essential in ensuring that the records of patients are kept safe. It is important for patients to have their records because it helps health practitioners understand the courses of action to consider in helping the patient receive adequate and effective treatment. Technology through the use of computers and Assistance of Technology Enhanced Tools offers the chance to acquire, store and use patient information when required in the hospital and also by patients in primary healthcare (Nelson & Ball, 2004).

The target population here includes the population of people who have hypertension. This group of people requires special treatment with respect to the circumstance that it is problematic for them to adequately get treatment each time they visit the hospital. Therefore, using health informatics, it will be easier to feed the information of these people and update that information whenever necessary. This will also be helpful in the sense that one hospital that has digitized information about a patient can be forwarded to another hospital when required.

Information technology can also help hypertensive people to improve their blood pressure through a multidisciplinary information technology-supported program. This can happen when blood pressure is measured through Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring (ABPM) in primary care contexts.

Many health care institutions have been accused of adopting technology in a rather rapid or haphazard manner. Conversely, healthcare as a whole entity has been accused of adopting many beneficial technologies in a rather slow manner and has been slow to innovate. The purchase of new technology, including major medical equipment, information technology, and training is the main challenge because these resources and training require a lot of funding that many hospitals need time to get. Therefore, resourcing the hospitals with the new technology might be slow but definitely necessary (Coye & Kell, 2006 ).

The Diffusion of Innovations Theory concentrates on the conditions that upsurge or reduction the possibility that a new idea, product, or practice can be adopted by members of a given culture (Orr, 2003). Therefore, the diffusion of innovation theory can be used in this situation, in the sense that technology through health informatics as a new idea can be adopted by health professionals and patients in order to better the provision of health services. As the theory suggests, the application of technology in hospitals can be done through the four stages that include the invention of the technology, diffusion into the institutions and patients, time for the application and implementation, and the results of the implementation. In this process, the use of Assistance of Technology Enhanced Tools is very essential.