As the costs of healthcare services rise and healthcare professionals are becoming scarce and hard to find, it is imminent that healthcare organizations consider adopting health information technology (HIT) systems. HIT allows health organizations to streamline many of their processes and provide services in a more efficient and cost-effective manner. The latest technological trends such as Clo...

Health Information Technology has a great potential to transform the existing health care systems by making them safe, effective and efficient. Multi-functionality and interoperability of health information systems are very important functions. Hence these features cannot be achieved without addressing the knowledge and skills of the health care personnel. There is a great mismatch between Info...

OBJECTIVES The objective of this survey paper is to present and explain the impact of recent regulations and patient safety initiatives (EU, US and Canada) on Human Factors (HF)/Usability studies and research focusing on Health Information Technology (HIT). METHODS The authors have selected the most prominent of these recent regulations and initiatives, which rely on validated HF and usabilit...

BACKGROUND Health information technology (HIT) may improve health care quality and outcomes, in part by making information available in a timelier manner. However, there are few studies documenting the changes in timely availability of data with the use of a sophisticated electronic medical record (EMR), nor a description of how the timely availability of data might differ with different types ...

In the previous issue, we reviewed the ways in which the Affordable Care Act (ACA) promotes the continued development of electronic health records (EHRs) to improve the quality of health care. In this companion article, we’ll focus on the cost-saving arguments behind the development of a digital health care system by contrasting the utopian vision of the mid1990s with its real-world implementat...

Introduction The US healthcare system is highly fragmented and fraught with attendant inefficiencies in delivery. Lack of interoperability and care coordination have resulted in duplication of care, increased error rates, adverse drug-drug interactions, reduced safety, and increased costs. It has been argued that investments in health information technologies will radically transform the health...

The aim of this study was to systematically review the published evidence of the impact of health information technology (HIT) or health information systems (HIS) on the quality of healthcare, focusing on clinicians's; adherence to evidence-based guidelines and the corresponding impact this had on patient clinical outcomes. The review covered the use of health information technologies and syste...

BACKGROUND Health information technology (HIT) tools are needed to sort the ever increasing volume of available clinical data, and thereby allow patients, practitioners, and health plans to understand and use the data to its fullest potential By harnessing this potential, managed care organizations (MCOs) will see improvements in the quality of health care and ultimately reduced costs. Furtherm...

BACKGROUND The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has multiple health information technology (HIT) resources for veterans to support their health care management. These include a patient portal, VetLink Kiosks, mobile apps, and telehealth services. The veteran patient population has a variety of needs and preferences that can inform current VA HIT redesign efforts to meet consumer needs. OBJ...