Health Ims Health Information Management Systems (Ims)

Health IMS

Health Information Management Systems (IMS) and its Impact on Organizational Decision-Making

In the journal article entitled, "The Benefits of Health Information Technology: A Review of the Recent Literature," authors Buntin et. al. (2011) examined extant, current literature -- a total of 154 peer-reviewed studies between 2007 and 2010 -- to evaluate the reported benefits of the integration of information management systems (IMS) in medical and healthcare institutions. This evaluation of health IMS-related studies was an attempt to verify if indeed, the new technology integrated within the healthcare operations and systems of institutions globally would result to the desired goal, which is to provide a more efficient, effective, and quality healthcare to the general public.

The integration of IMS in healthcare systems and operations is prompted with the approval and passing of the law called HITECH, or Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health. Passed in 2007, HITECH provided support to medical and health organizations "to adopt certified electronic health records and use them effectively in the course of care." The authors pointed out that subsequent to the passing of HITECH into a law, other laws and regulations have focused on the use of information technology in the implementation of patient care in medical and health organizations. Among these policies or regulations that was passed subsequent to HITECH is the Affordable Care Act of 2010, which highlights the integral and critical role that health IMS plays in "achieving goals related health care quality and efficiency" (p. 464).

The evaluation of 2007-2010 studies on health IMS integration in medical and health institutions showed a predominantly positive result or benefit of the technology to efficient and quality care (96%) (p. 466). However, while the results are predominantly positive, there were also identified negative effects of health IMS in the provision of care and operations of medical/health organizations. Among the identified benefits of health IMS include: decreased patient mortality, decreased nurse staffing levels, decreased amount of time for staff to care for patient while maintaining clinical outcomes, and decreased medical cost without increasing length of stay or mortality. Negative effects, however, were also determined, mainly on an overall healthcare provision level: unsatisfactory technology, ineffective provider-patient communication, lesser staff interaction, longer time for e-prescribing, lack of clinical leadership, staff skepticism, unrealistic schedules, and errors in terms of patient care, medication, procedure, and patient fallout (pp. 467-8).