What Is Health Information Technology? Ultimate Guide

The average person often doesn’t think about health care software. They often don’t think about how it affects the medical industry as a whole, either. Many might think, “My clinic is doing just fine; what do I care?” But the impact of health information technology has revolutionized patient care on a global scale. Implementing these medical practice management software and other health care information systems in hospitals and other health care organizations has had monumental effects.

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Every year, more and more health care providers are taking steps to change how their business manages internal processes.

Health information technology (HIT) improves health care quality by processing, storing and exchanging health information through an electronic medium. Health care systems leveraging health information technology reduce costs and improve medical care. According to a report published by HIMSS, about 80% of health care institutions plan to invest heavily in digital health care tools.

But choosing the right health care information software for your business can be confusing. There are several HIT categories, and with many of these software systems sharing similar capabilities, it’s not always easy to distinguish one from the next. That’s why we’ve made a primer to help you break down the types of health information technology.

What this Article Covers

• What is Health Information Technology?
• Categories
• Benefits
• Key Features
• Upcoming Trends
• Security and Privacy
• Implementation
• Next Steps

What is Health Information Technology?

Before we dive in too far, let’s define what health information technology actually is. In the broadest sense, HIT is applying information technology to health care. This refers to the electronics systems that health care professionals (and sometimes patients) use to store, share and analyze health information. It’s another way to describe the comprehensive management of information among patients, practitioners, government and quality entities, and insurers.

The use of health information technology improves the quality and effectiveness of health care; it promotes individual and public health while increasing the accuracy of diagnoses. The software also reduces costs and medical errors, while improving the efficiency of both administrative and clinical processes.

In addition to providing a higher quality of care, health care software saves you time and money. Using health information technology can reduce the time and effort spent managing daily operations and administrative tasks, allowing your health care organization to focus more of its efforts on patient treatment and health. Faster prescriptions, improved information sharing, reduced paperwork and better follow-up are just a few examples of how health care software is helping facilities to become more productive and efficient.

There are various health care information technology systems — depending on your health care organization’s type of treatment and specific needs, there will be certain solutions you’ll benefit from more than others. Before you can begin the process of selecting software, you must be aware of the different software types regarding HIT.

Categories

There are three main health care information technology categories and four “subcategories.” You’ll find these exist in both hospitals and physician offices and are beneficial for nearly all types of providers.

Medical Practice Management

As the name implies, practice management software helps you manage your practice’s different administrative and clinical aspects. MPM software centralizes various systems so you can run things more efficiently. It automates almost every task under the “health information management” umbrella, from organizing appointments to verifying insurance.

Although there may be some features that involve patient information, MPM is geared much more toward a health care facility’s clerical work, such as managing patient flows and other general documentation for the office. With medical practice management software, there’s no need for a patient’s medical data to be included. For example, practice management software might keep record of patient demographics but will generally not include a patient’s medical history.

Rather than clinicians, the primary users of practice management software will consist predominantly of front desk workers as well as those with administrative roles. In addition to scheduling appointments and verifying insurance, medical practice management software automatically processes claims, generates reports and handles medical billing and payment.

Overall, think of practice management as a way to manage the day-to-day operations of your health care organization. By automating a variety of business tasks, MPM helps to improve a facility’s production and efficiency while giving administrators and other staff more time to focus on patient care.

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EHR / EMR

The cornerstone of switching to the patient side of things, electronic health records (EHR) focus on the documentation and storage of a patient’s medical information. In the past, clinicians had to document everything on paper, by hand — now, they can simply fill out that information on their computer or mobile device.

Electronic medical records (EMR) started as a way to eliminate the time and errors that came with the manual charting of patient data. The problem, historically, with EMRs was that patient information was only able to be viewed within one office — so, if a patient switched to a different clinic, their medical information would not follow suit. Electronic health records eliminate this shortcoming by allowing the transfer of patient data among different health care facilities. With an EHR, a patient in the emergency room receives proper treatment as different physicians can access their information.

While differentiating an EHR from an EMR can be difficult, don’t stress about knowing the distinction — in recent years, industry insiders have started to use the two terms interchangeably. For the sake of this article, we will be referring to both as EHR.

These systems can also alert you when patients are due for preventive procedures and screenings. In addition, EHRs help physicians treat patients by looking at their history and comparing their health data with past entries.

EHRs are also saving health organizations money by saving space. Because a patient’s information is stored electronically, facilities can repurpose space that was originally used for document storage. They also eliminate the risk of damaged or misplaced files.

It’s important to remember that practice management software and electronic health records focus on entirely different aspects of your practice. Think of MPM in relation to the business side of a health care facility — handling the day-to-day operations — while EHR focuses on patient treatment and documentation of medical charts

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Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS) and Vendor-Neutral Archives (VNAs)

PACS and VNAs are the two most popular tools in use by health care professionals to process and store patients’ medical images. These systems are an important category of health information technology as they integrate radiology into the regular workflow of a clinic. Leveraging PACS and VNAs, medical staff can merge imaging data stored in separate departments’ image banks in a centralized, accessible location.

Primary Benefits

Health information technology has been around in the health care industry for some time now. Needless to say that it has a positive impact on the key aspects of health care, including quality and efficiency. Let’s take a look at some of the benefits of HIT.

• Leverage an EHR to enable faster means for a doctor to access patient data. Reduce paper dependency, saving time and additional costs for the clinic.
• Tap into the power of big data analytics to extract actionable data to manage patient populations efficiently.
• Streamline data coordination between providers with EHRs. Ensure all medical professionals concerned get access to updated data.
• Use cognitive computing and analytics to extract valuable insights to align medicine according to patient requirements.
• Patients can obtain and modify their own data if required. Further, they can share information with clinicians.

Key Features

These systems often integrate with practice management software to provide robust functions and better patient care:

Patient Portal

With patient portals, users can essentially view everything you’d find in an EHR, including patient history, treatments and medications. Patients can access their medical histories, schedule appointments, message their doctor, view bills and make payments all online. Patient portals are allow patients to have more control when it comes to their overall health treatment.

Patients can use their personal devices, such as a phone or tablet, to create and save personal notes as well as receive alerts and notifications from their providers. Rather than having to wait on the phone during business hours to set an appointment, a patient can simply log in, check their doctor’s availability and schedule a time that works for both of them.

Once a patient has finished their appointment, they can go online to view their bill and provide payment information to settle up.

In recent years, these systems have increased in popularity among hospitals and medical practices. Today’s consumer expects more transparency and accessibility than ever before, so it’s no wonder why portals are becoming a staple in the medical industry.

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Patient Scheduling

Scheduling software often goes hand-in-hand with a patient portal. In today’s digital age, many patients prefer to schedule appointments themselves. You can direct patients to log in to their account and schedule appointments when convenient for them, matching their availability with that of their practitioner(s).

Providing patients the accessibility to manage their own scheduling radically reduces your phone traffic while allowing patients to find the specific time and date that works best for them. Rather than calling every time they want to make an appointment, patients can make appointments at any time of the day, as opposed to just being able to do so from 9-5.

Aside from the patient’s ability to set appointments, practitioners can use practice management software to schedule other staff members as well as assign exam rooms and specialty equipment to specific times of the day.

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Medical Billing

One of the most time-consuming tasks for practices is managing all aspects of billing. It’s especially true for busy hospitals and practices, as there is little time to spare for most tasks in the first place. Medical billing software handles the entire billing workflow process from scheduling an appointment until payment is processed.

In addition to patient billing, this software handles insurance claims, insurance verification, payment processing and patient tracking. If there’s an issue such as a late payment, the system alerts you so you can act accordingly.

Perhaps the most significant advantage to medical billing software lies in its claim scrubbing tools. This involves automatically scanning claims and eliminating any NCCI, HIPAA or LCD errors. In turn, this leads to higher first-pass claim acceptance rates and faster reimbursements for your facility.

If your facility focuses on specialized care, make sure your area of treatment is supported by your software, as many medical billing solutions don’t support specialty clinics — mainly dentistry.

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E-Prescribing

Sending prescriptions to pharmacies can be tedious when creating orders for multiple patients. To expedite the process, physician offices began using e-prescribing software. A prescription is sent, filled and waiting for the patient when they get to the pharmacy in just a few clicks.

In addition to speeding up the entire prescription process, medical professionals can track the fulfillment of prescriptions and monitor controlled substance prescriptions more accurately. Practitioners can spend less time responding to prescription refill requests and more time focusing on other issues at hand.

When entering and re-entering data by hand, errors are naturally going to occur; e-prescribing systems ensure there’s never a prescription mix-up caused by hard-to-decipher handwriting. Additionally, by being online rather than in physical form, you don’t run the risk of misplacing a prescription. The system displays the prescription at the pharmacy, ensuring patient safety by giving them the correct one.

Patients are also saving money as a result of e-prescribing. Further, your clinic is able to keep better track of patient records and provide a more cost-effective medication for your patients.

Remote Patient Monitoring

With remote patient monitoring, medical sensors can send patient data from their home (or wherever they are) to health care professionals at the facility. RPM reduces the costs of chronic care and hospital readmission while leading to better quality health care.

RPM can also monitor blood-glucose levels as well as blood pressure for patients with chronic conditions. Leverage data to predict and prevent events that’d otherwise require medical intervention. As RPMs become increasingly popular, this data captured could possibly become part of a more extensive population health study down the road.

Practitioners can use the data they gather to make recommendations or provide wellness advice to the patient. For example, if a patient is consistently gaining weight, a doctor might recommend a healthier diet or even make sure the treatment isn’t causing the problem.

Aside from chronic care, several types of health care benefit from using an RPM: post-discharge care, senior care, worker’s compensation cases, behavioral health and substance abuse treatment.

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Master Patient Index

To put in the simplest of terms, a master patient index connects a patient’s records with more than one database. Containing records for any patient registered at a health care organization, an MPI allows that facility’s different departments to all share data simultaneously.

This type of HIT is commonly used by hospitals or other large practices, as data can be entered once and stored for future reference different departments and labs. The MPI then creates an index of all medical records for a specific patient, making accessing patient data quick and painless.

A couple of end goals of using MPI include providing more accurate data and better security of patient information. MPI aims to reduce the need for the manual duplication of patient records; for example, when it comes to filling out claims, errors involving patient information can be prevented, resulting in fewer patient claim denials. Administrators can control which users can access the MPI with access management tools.

Upcoming Trends

Internet of Medical things (IoMT)

A report from Precedence Research projects the IoMT market will reach $172.4 billion by 2030, up from $39.9 billion in 2020.

Wearables and trackers have become an important part of today’s medical industry for updating health care professionals with real-time patient data. It also allows patients to be aware of their own health and make informed decisions. Through wearables, doctors and patients can stay in touch with each other constantly.

Data Privacy

Cybersecurity is a widespread challenge. According to the healthcare data breach report published by HIPAA Journal, “In 2021, an average of 59 data breaches were reported each month and 712 healthcare data breaches were reported between January 1 and December 31, 2021.” With IoT interoperability, the threat of data hacks is constantly rising every day. Health care organizations need to scope and revamp their security options to keep their data safe.

HIPAA-complaint Video Conferencing Options

According to HIPAA mandates, health care institutions are in charge of protecting the privacy of patients’ medical data. With telemedicine in full swing, video applications such as Zoom, Skype and Google Meet provide video calling features to connect doctors with patients remotely. That said, upcoming video conferencing solutions will have enhanced security protocols for protecting patient data.

Security and Privacy

HIPAA mandates have been the standard of security requirements in the medical industry for quite some time now. Every medical clinic needs to abide by these security directives to provide patients access to their medical records securely.

A Critical Insight report states, in 2021, there was a 35% increase in cybersecurity attacks across clinics, hospitals and medical organizations. Medical clinics are increasingly adopting health IT systems with data security and cybersecurity technology to avoid online threats.

Implementation

Although HIT offers many potential benefits, individuals and institutions have been somewhat slow to adopt the technology. In some cases, the issues are financially motivated; even when the federal government provides monetary incentives, the initial cost of implementing HIT can be too expensive of a turn-off for providers.

Other times the problems are more technical — one example of this occurs when companies try to interface different proprietary systems with health information technology containing laboratory or medication data.

To choose and use HIT effectively, an organization must be diligent in researching both current and proposed requirements. Not only quality of care but health information technology also make health care more cost-effective. Despite initial difficulties associated with implementing the program, the outcomes are worth the risk and effort. Think of how to streamline processes at your hospital or practice once you do implement a system. It could make the least favorable tasks much easier to manage for you and the rest of your staff.

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Next Steps

Health information technology systems equip professionals to provide better treatment and boost the efficiency of health organizations. Although there are many types of health care information systems to choose from, we hope this list can help narrow your search.

You’ll want to recognize your organization’s specific needs and what you hope to get out of your software, as with any software. It’s also wise to request demos from vendors so you know what each program is capable of before making your final decision — the most popular software may turn out to be less-than-stellar solutions for your particular clinic. When making your final decision, the most important thing is to find a system that fits your facility.

How has your health care facility benefited from the use of health information technology systems? Are there any we missed? Let us know in the comments.