Importance of Healthcare Systems

Question: Explain how your newfound insight will influence your nursing care. Answer: Introduction A health care information system is a system that collects, stores and transmits information related to the health of patients and activities of organizations within the health sector. This includes district level routine information systems, laboratory information systems, disease surveillance systems, human resource management, and hospital management patient administration systems (Pai Huang, 2011, p. 655). In the health care system, sound decision making is important since lives of people depend on them. This decision making mostly depends on data collected and analyzed by the information systems. Therefore, they are very important in health care provision. This topic is therefore very important in understanding the importance of health-care systems in the management and running of the health-care sector. When studied in details, it can show how crucial they are and how they can be improved. Importance of Healthcare Systems As discussed in the introduction, health-care systems are very important in decision making in the health-care sector. The data collected is analyzed to give a clear picture of the status of the health care sector (Cleverley, Song, Cleverley, 2010, p. 2). If the health information system is efficient, it can provide a proper guide for resource allocation. Resources will only be allocated to areas and sectors that have an urgent need, which can be analyzed from the information system. Resources will only be allocated where they are required. This reduces wastages, and encourages efficient resource use. The collected data can be useful in improving the quality of the health-care sector: this includes service delivery and management of the sector. Health-care systems are very important in providing a good picture on the status of the sector. It provides a platform for identifying areas that are not good and need to be improved; without this platforms, it would be difficult to identify which areas need improvement (Quality Medicine, 1999, p. 10). The information systems can also be used to measure staffing needs in the health-care sector. Since data has been collected by the system, it can be used to analyze the need to increase or reduce staff members in different departments to enhance efficiency in service delivery. This also saves on expenditure on salary and wages, by only hiring the number of staff required and reducing over-staffing (Matcha, 2003, p. 159). All these advantages enhance the delivery of services in the health-care sector especially in nursing. Nurses collect data about their patients, and this data enables them to be able to track and follow-up on a patients progress towards recovery from an illness. Examples of health-care information systems One of the health-care information systems in nursing is the Electronic Health Record (EHR). It is used for enhancing patient safety, evaluating the quality of health-care services, measuring staffing needs, and maximizing efficiency. This system is very vital in the provision of health services (Amatayakul Lazarus, 2005, p. 1). This system enable nurses to record patients data and track their health records providing a means for individual service delivery for each of the patients. For each of the patients, data is collected and recorded, and their historical health record can be stored for future analysis and research (Amatayakul Lazarus, 2005, p. 3). However, nurses have indicated dissatisfaction with the system. They claim its design is cumbersome and the electronic system involved for collecting data is not user friendly. This means that in order for nurses to support the system it must be improved to be more user-friendly (Harrington Newman, 2011, p. 71). Another is North American Nursing Diagnostic Association (NANDA). This associations was founded in 1982, and its main functions are research, disseminating and refining the nomenclature, criteria and taxonomy of diagnoses (International, 2014, p. 3). This association is very important in the collection of nursing information and practices. It encourages research work on nursing and health-care, and disseminates this information to enhance nursing service provision. They communicate the nursing diagnosis and decisions to patients and other nurses. This dissemination of information about the nursing practices enhances service delivery (International, 2014, p. 3). Conclusion In conclusion, health-care information systems are very crucial in the health sector. They are the means by which health data is collected, analyzed and disseminating to various stakeholders. This information is very essential in the improvement of health-care services. With technological advances, health-care information systems are bound to become more efficient and improved, and this will have a positive impact in the health care sector. The new found insight into health-care information systems, will help me understand the importance of a data collection and sharing in the improvement of nursing care services. References Amatayakul, M. K., Lazarus, S. S. (2005). Electronic Health Records: Transforming Your Medical Practice. Medical Group Management Assn. Cleverley, W. O., Song, P. H., Cleverley, J. O. (2010). Essentials of Health Care Finance. Jones Bartlett Learning. Harrington, J., Newman, E. D. (2011). Great Health Care: Making It Happen. Springer Science Business Media. International, N. (2014). Nursing Diagnoses 2012-14: Definitions and Classification. John Wiley Sons. Matcha, D. A. (2003). Health Care Systems of the Developed World: How the United States System Remains an Outlier. Greenwood Publishing Group. Pai, F.-Y., Huang, K.-I. (2011). Applying the technology acceptance model to the introduction of healthcare information systems. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 78(4), 650660. Quality, T. N. R. on H. C., Medicine, I. of. (1999). Measuring the Quality of Health Care. National Academies Press.