Health Information Technology

1. Healthcareinformation exchanges (HIEs) are maturing and providing opportunities for healthcare providers and payers to collaborate on patient healthcare records and to streamline care. The proliferation and acceptance of healthcareinformation exchanges are slow, as they are not widely accepted. Describe the overall advantages of HIEs. Explain the root causes of the issues with these exchanges, and describe what strategies are underway to drive acceptance. (1-2 pages)

2. Surveys show that healthcareprovider satisfaction is related to the technology available to them in providing patient care. Identify the health information technology most used in patient care and the advances in technology used to enhance patient care. (2-3 pages)

3. Healthcare providers are taking advantage of real-time tool location systems (RTLSs) to monitor both their organization's hardware assets and patient progress. Examples of these systems are radio-frequency identification (RFID) tracking for patient flow, asset tracking for equipment location, and ultrasound tag tracking. Explain how hospitals can reduce costs and increase quality of care by using these tracking systems. (1-2 pages)

4. A survey found that 70% of doctors use electronic health records in one form or another. Explain how sharing electronic health records among doctors, patients, and payers can enhance the health of patients through effective clinical decision support. (2-3 pages)

5. Describe how healthcareprovider organizations can leverage health information technology and improve the processes of care delivery to provide better patient quality of care. (2-3 pages)

6. Describe how healthcarepayer organizations can use healthcareinformation exchanges (HIEs) to improve processes of care delivery that enhance the quality of service they provide patients. (1-2 pages)

7. Explain how industry standards for interoperability of electronic healthcare records can enable secure and private access to patient data. (2-3 paragraphs)

8. Describe how medical information exchange and applied healthcare interoperability standards for healthcare record communications can increase efficiency of inter-departmental communications, between general practitioners and specialists, and between providers and regulatory agencies. (2-3 paragraphs)

9. Describe how healthcare organizations can adopt social media to enable patient access to the organizations and their staff and to address patient healthcare issues. (1-2 pages)

10. Describe how physicians can use the Internet and social media to enhance their interactions with medical services that affect their patients. (1-2 pages)

11. Explain how the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) promotes the adoption of technology to improve the quality of care. (1-2 pages)

12. Describe how the federal government has sought to influence the adoption and use of electronic health records in the past 10 years. Discuss the effectiveness of these efforts. (2-3 pages)