Strategic Information System – Current Issues

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.

Order custom essay Strategic Information System – Current Issues with free plagiarism report

450+ experts on 30 subjects Starting from 3 hours delivery

Get Essay Help

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

1. Berner, E.S., 2009. Clinical decision support systems: state of the art. AHRQ publication, 90069.
2. 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).
3. Ngafeeson, M.N., 2015. Healthcare Information Systems Opportunities and Challenges. In Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology, Third Edition (pp. 3387-3395). IGI Global.
4. Rudowski, R., 2008. Impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) on Health Care. Department of Medical Informatics and Telemedicine, Medical University of Warsaw, Poland.
5. WHO. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2011. A System of Health Accounts 2011. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
6. Wood, J., 2004. Rural health and healthcare: A north west perspective. Institute for Health Research, Lancaster University.

Don't let plagiarism ruin your grade

Run a free check or have your essay done for you

Check my essay Hire Writer