The role of IT departments in healthcare is to implement and manage certain technologies to streamline patient care. This is accomplished with electronic health records (EHRs), clinical decision support systems (CDSS), telemedicine, patient portals, medical device integration, interoperability practices, training, support, data security, and privacy. Hospitals can incorporate updated safety standards and legal guidelines into IT systems to remain in compliance both legally and ethically. CDSS has the capability to inform providers of drug interactions, contraindications for drug use, potential clinical diagnoses, and reinforce treatment plans. I find CDSS to be the most interesting new IT measure in healthcare and I am excited to see how that will help streamline patient care. CDSS can analyze big data down into usable fragments in information about a person’s health, including genetic data to formulate a feasible differential diagnosis which once took a doctor a considerable amount of time in some cases to achieve. The only issue I see is if CDSS is structured with any type of bias. Relying on technology for me is hard still, but I realize it is going to happen whether any of like it and the best way we can equip ourselves is to be ready for change at any given time and find a way to make technology work for you and not against you.
The following must be considered when developing or implementing new IT in healthcare in the evolution of quality and safety in healthcare. This includes data management and integrity, regulatory compliance, quality measurement and reporting, HIT implementation, data analytics and health information exchange (HIE), patient engagement and education, continuous improvement strategies, training and education, and risk management. Health information management (HIM) has a substantial responsibility to manage the “5 V’s” listed by the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) as volume, variety, veracity, velocity, and value. AHIMA describes health IT governance as “an organization-wide framework for managing information throughout its lifecycle and supporting the organization’s strategy, operations, regulatory requirements, legal considerations, and environmental concerns. The complexity of data governance is due to an ever-changing landscape in HIT and will continue to be a high point of importance. It is overwhelming the information we now have access to we once waited days or weeks to get.