Health informatics or Health Information Systems (HIS) fulfills the needs of our U.S. population healthcare system. The primary and secondary uses of HIS together working in concert has the potential to recreate healthcare for everyone involved. Healthcare in the U.S. touches every person one way or another. The strategic planning and management of information technology infrastructure encompasses the foundation for which to build a stronger healthcare system. This is exactly what HIS is commissioned to do, build a better healthcare system.
The primary uses of HIS include the support and delivery of patient care; support administrative activities and financial transactions; and ensure patient data is passed over to the providers. The secondary uses of HIS consists of informatics and data analytics; policy, research and public health; reporting data to third parties for accountability and monitoring measures and finally, the data is passed to payer organizations and government officials. This short list of HIS components encompass a vast inter-connected system of technology and information all wrap up in a Health Informatics discipline, the way of the future for the U.S. population healthcare. I could not imagine tackling such an ever growing healthcare system without HIS—every end user involve will benefit.
Reference:
- Balgrosky, J. A. (2020). Understanding Health Information Systems for the health professions. Jones; Bartlett Learning.