AN INTRODUCTION TO HEALTH

INFORMATION SYSTEMS (HIS)

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 WHAT IS HIS?
• Health Information System : One that
supports all hospital functions and activities
such as patient records, scheduling,
administration, charge-back and billing, and
often links to or includes clinical information
systems such as RIS. (Radiology Information
System )

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ICT
• Part of a HIS in which computer systems
are used as ICT-tools (information and
communication technology ) is referred to
as its computer-supported part
• The remainder is being referred to as the
non-computer-supported part

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 WHAT IS HIS?
 the question is not
 whether a hospital should be equipped with a
hospital information system or not,
 but an appropriate question would be ...
 whether the performance should be enhanced,
for example, by using state of the art ICT-tools
 HIS must consider all areas of a hospital:
 wards
 outpatient units
 service units (diagnostic, therapy, others)
 administrative departments
 management/executive units
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WHAT IS HIS?
 HIS must consider all groups of persons
 physicians
 nurses
 administrative staff
 technical staff
 health informaticians / health information
managers
...
 ... and last, but not least,
 patients
 visitors
 suppliers
 ...
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WHAT IS A HIS?
 Definitions of HIS abound  Occram’s rule!

 “an integrated effort to collect, process, report and use

health information and knowledge to influence policy-
making, programme action and research”
WHO (2000) Guidance on Needs Assessment for National
Health Information Systems Development.

 “a set of interrelated components working together to

gather, retrieve, process, store and disseminate information
to support the activities of health system planning, control,
coordination and decision-making, both in management and
service delivery”
Jack Smith, in: Health Management Information Systems – a
handbook for decision makers. OUP, 2000.
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 Hospital Information System

Registration Consulting Ward Nursing

Stores & Purchase

Diet & Kitchen

Pharmacy

And more...
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Blood Bank Laboratory Radiology
BENEFITS OF HIS

Investment in HIS may result in many benefits (WHO):

 helping decision makers to detect and control emerging

and endemic health problems, monitor progress
towards health goals, and promote equity;
 empowering individuals and communities with timely
and understandable health-related information, and
drive improvements in quality of services;
 strengthening the evidence base for effective health
policies, permitting evaluation of scale-up efforts, and
enabling innovation through research;
 improving governance, mobilising new resources, and
ensuring accountability in the way they are used.
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HEALTH CARE DATA
TYPES OF HEALTH CARE DATA

Patient-Specific Data
 Clinical Data

 Administrative Data

 Financial and Billing Data

Aggregate Health Care Data

 Disease and Procedure Indexes

 Cost Reports

 Health Care Statistics

 Outcome Measures and Balanced

Scorecards
HEALTH CARE INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Foundational Terms & Definitions
 NHIN – National Health Information
Network
 An Internet-based data exchange that will
allow medical providers to share health data
to improve care
 Automated prescriptions

 Accuracy of patient information

FOUNDATIONAL TERMS & DEFINITIONS

RHIO (Regional Health Information

Organization):
A regional organization of stakeholders
enabling the exchange and use of health
information to facilitate improvements in
healthcare quality .
FOUNDATIONAL TERMS & DEFINITIONS
EMR – Electronic Medical Record
An Electronic Medical Record facilitates:
 access of patient data by clinical staff at any

given location
 accurate and complete claims processing by

insurance companies
 building automated checks for drug and

allergy interactions
 clinical notes

 prescriptions

 scheduling sending to and viewing labs

INFORMATICS TERMS AND DEFINITIONS
PHR – Personal Health Record
The Personal Health Record (PHR) is an
Internet-based set of tools that allows people
to access and coordinate their lifelong health
information and make appropriate parts of it
available to those who need it.
INFORMATICS TERMS AND DEFINITIONS
PHR’s offer an integrated and comprehensive
view of health information, including
information people generate themselves such
as symptoms and medication use, information
from doctors such as diagnoses and test
results, and information from their
pharmacies and insurance companies.
Individuals access their PHRs via the Internet,
using state-of-the-art security and privacy
controls, at any time and from any location.
 Access on a local computer with download
capabilities
 Paper records
PHR
Family members, doctors or school nurses can
see portions of a PHR when
necessary and emergency room staff can
retrieve vital information from it in a crisis.

People can use their PHR as a communications

hub: to send email to doctors, transfer
information to specialists, receive test results
and access online self-help tools. PHR connects
each of us to the incredible potential of modern
health care and gives us control over our own
information.
FOUNDATIONAL TERMS & DEFINITIONS

HIPAA Assurance:
 The Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act mandates that
healthcare providers and health plans
protect the privacy of patient records;
one implication for medical IT providers
is that a VPN can be used to secure
transmission of medical records over the
Internet
TYPES OF (HEALTH) INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Artificial Intelligence

Decision support systems,

Strategic simulation systems, financial
information forecasting, performance
systems assessment

Management information
Tactical information
systems
systems
Electronic patient records,
payroll, invoicing systems,
Operational information systems patient administration systems,
purchasing/inventory, office
automation
HEALTH INFORMATION SUBSYSTEMS
A health information system can be considered to consist of
several separate subsystems:

 Data collection based on patient and service records and

reporting from community health workers, health workers
and health facilities

 Programme-specific monitoring and evaluation

(ex: EPI, Malaria, TB, HIV/AIDS)

 Administration and resource management

(budget, personnel, supplies)

 Disease surveillance and outbreak notification

 Data generated through household surveys (KPC, DHS)

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 Registration of vital events and censuses
(births, deaths and causes of death)
 Figure 3 - Health information
HIS subsystems rarely interact
sub-systems rarely interact
costs
resources MCH/FP
Administrative HIV
data malaria
EPI surveys
TB Water/san
HIV
Routine Household Behaviour
MCH/FP service surveys surveys HIV
EPI data STI
Census Behavioural
MCH Disease risk
Vital surveillance surveys smoking
cause registration exercise
HIV
of Ebola nutrition
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death cancer
 Development steps of HIS

GMIS
Geographical
Management
Information System
Clinical
Information
CIS System
Management
Information
MIS System

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THIS INFORMATION CAN BE CATEGORIZED AS

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INFORMATION WILL BE USED BY THE AREAS
 Patient Administration
 Clinical Management

 Resource Management

 Financial Management

 Management Information System

 And more…

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 Data Entry Medical Billing &
Event
& Results Logic Financial
Laboratory Monitor
Review Modules

Specialized
Encoders
MedLEE

Pharmacy Database
Interface
Medical
Entities
Dictionary

Radiology

Research
Patient
Databases
Database
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HIS HAVE THE ABILITY TO LINK THE FOLLOWING MAJOR
PLAYERS

 Laboratories
 Pharmacies

 Researchers

 Doctors and consultants

 Banks and financial institutions

 Administrators

 And knowledge managers

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 HIS should provide
r information, primarily about patients, in a way
that it is correct, pertinent and up to date, in time,
accessible by the right persons at the right site in a
usable format
r knowledge, primarily about diseases, but also,
for example, about the effects of drug interaction, to
support diagnosis and therapy
r information about the quality of patient care,
hospital performance and costs

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