A Healthcare Facility along with a Information System (IS) used at this facility - Research Paper Example

In other words, the facility serves a population of close to 1.5 million per year. The number of licensed beds as of 2006 is 2,700: patient care as of 2006 was as follows; the annual inpatient admissions were 145,000, annual inpatient days were 733,000, annual outpatient visits was 1,050,000 and the annual home health visits was 233,000 (MedStar, 2007). Programs and services offered by MedStar Health include adult day services, after hours care, cancer services, cardiac services, clinical trials and research, diabetes and endocrinology, executive health services, home care, international services, MedStar Partners Business Diversity Program, MedStar pharmacy, MedStar sportshealth, mental health services, nursing home, orthopedics, outpatient services, RadAmerica – Radiation therapy, rehabilitation, retirement residence, and women’s services (MedStar Health, 2011).

The users of health information in MedStar constitute physicians, ancillary staff, IT professions, and pharmacists. The health information revolves around these individuals. In order to meet the requirements of MedStar Health professionals and also reduce the resources and costs needed to run an international healthcare organization, the health facility adopted a hospital information system called Microsoft Amalga (also known as Azyxxi) (Microsoft Corporation, 2008). MedStar has a network of hospitals and other healthcare services; in order to have a glimpse of how users access health information, Washington Hospital Center will be used.

MedStar Health is on the move of adopting Electronic Medical Records (EMR) or Electronic Health Records (EHR). Currently, Washington Hospital Center is using both paper records and electronic records. A big challenge to the implementation is the inability to share information with other electronic records systems (Washington