The Importance of Heath Information Exchange
Posted by sandeepalbert | Under Health Wednesday Nov 16, 2011Most people ask does health information exchange saves a huge amount of money? The short and precise answer is yes, it does. Many researches prove that when the health information was exchanged during an accidental or normal checkup, the physicians avoided duplicating tests and results. Thus, it results in saving a huge amount of money for the patient.
Basically, the goal of this exchange is to reduce the time it takes for carrying out several tests more than one time. Since every physician does not have a complete data of previous tests of a patient, he asks the patient to carry out a new test. Thus, the repetition occurs and it takes extra time and money. Also, if a doctor wants to look at the previous record, the whole process takes forever to reach the doctors. In this case, the patient may suffer a serious discomfort. This is the reason that now more and more people are taking a keen interest in health information exchange. It not only helps the patient, but also the physicians. They find it extremely easy to just go through a patient’s record without having any delays.
The research conducted for technology and information sharing in health care also showed tremendous improvement in the overall treatment of a patient. So, if a physician has a comprehensive and thorough medical record including his previous instructions and prescriptions, the medical professional was able to provide a better medical care. Similarly, when a physician Computerized physician order entry (CPOE), it is sent to the entire medical network. Thus, any other physician in case of emergency or otherwise will have an easy access to the complete medical history of a patient. Thus, the risk of giving a wrong or irrelevant treatment also reduces to a great deal.
The importance of health care information exchange can be noticed by the fact that even the government of the USA is offering funds to a few of the suffering health care information organizations. This is a symbol itself that how beneficial and useful this technology is becoming in the healthcare industry. More and more people are getting employment and the physicians and the patients are enjoying benefits as well.
