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Expanding Access to Healthcare
According to the World Health Organization (2011), the main challenges of health care systems are related to managing competing demands and multiple objectives.
Building effective Strategic Information Systems can help health care providers expand coverage to rural areas, and overcome barriers of access through finding alternative methods of information exchange and delivery.
Opportunities
Ngafeeson (2014) lists the main opportunities of strategic information systems’ application in healthcare as follows:
Biomedical research
Developing prevention and treatment standards
Care delivery
Linking national and regional registries
Decision-support
Challenges
Blumenthal (2009) states that the resistance in the profession is the main barrier of SIS integration. Further challenges listed by Ngafeeson (2014) are:
Lack of integration among systems
Confusing standards
Lack of well-developed exchange systems
Cost restraints
Potential Benefits
The main potential benefits of SIS on the health care system to successfully deal with demographic challenges are:
Accessibility (rural residents’ access to care)
Cost savings
Improved quality of care
Education opportunities remotely
Collaboration among departments (Rudowski 2008).
Emerging Themes
Clinical decision support systems can support primary care providers (Berner 2009)
Rural access improvement through “internet doctor” services (Wood 2004)
Data mining capability building to develop knowledge about trends (Ngafeeson 2014)
Instant collaboration methods development
Current Initiatives
Chronic Disease Management Program in New Zealand helped deliver adequate diabetes control (Rudowski 2008)
transmission of ECG signal directly from the ambulance to invasive cardiology centre (Rudowski 2008)
Teleradiology
Application of SIS in Health Care
Berner (2009) lists possible areas of adaptation as:
Preventive care (identifying risk populations)
Diagnosis (database updates)
Treatment plans (guidelines, templates)
Cost reduction (duplicate test alert, for example)
Follow-up management (alerts)
(Berner 2009).
Future Outlook and Research
Hoque, Hossin, and Khan (2016) states that Strategic Information Systems Planning (SISP) will benefit developing countries more.
The authors also define different stages of SISP:
Strategic awareness
Situation analysis
Strategy conception
Strategy formulation
Strategy implementation
SIS Challenges
Difficulty to secure commitment
Need for training and development
Lack of IT support
Underdeveloped technological environment
IT leader selection and recruitment
Issues with implementation and project management
(Hoque, Hossin, and Khan 2016)
Conclusion
Several opportunities exist in improving health care access, diagnosis accuracy, and information flow in the health care system, related to the development of SIS.
The main barriers of implementation were found to be lack of training opportunity, personnel resistance, and lack of IT leadership.
References
Berner, E.S., 2009. Clinical decision support systems: state of the art. AHRQ publication, 90069.
Hoque, M.R., Hossin, M.E. and Khan, W., 2016. Strategic Information Systems Planning (SISP) Practices In Health Care Sectors Of Bangladesh. European Scientific Journal, 12(6).
Ngafeeson, M.N., 2015. Healthcare Information Systems Opportunities and Challenges. In Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology, Third Edition (pp. 3387-3395). IGI Global.
Rudowski, R., 2008. Impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) on Health Care. Department of Medical Informatics and Telemedicine, Medical University of Warsaw, Poland.
WHO. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2011. A System of Health Accounts 2011. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Wood, J., 2004. Rural health and healthcare: A north west perspective. Institute for Health Research, Lancaster University.
