Essay Example on Health Information’s Impact on Research

This AHIMA article states that only 19 percent of healthcare providers use an electronic record but it must be kept in mind that this article was created in 2004 AHIMA Out of today's healthcare providers the majority of offices now do keep entire electronic health records But even though paper records are still being phased out it proves that health information professionals are needed more and more in this profession Health information professionals have the IT knowledge that is needed to help these offices that are still using paper charts for offices with entire electronic charts or offices with hybrid charting Just this element alone proves a benefit that it would have to have health information involved in research processes because if medical records must be researched no one would be as knowledgeable as health information professionals Medical records expertise is just one IT benefit that health information has to research others include knowledge on construction of data warehouses construction of personal health records for patients and organization healthcare data that is scattered or unorganized Knowledge of data warehousing techniques is also essential to research purposes for the fact that that is where all data is stored 

Yes other professionals also have this skill but health information professionals have a specialized skill to analyze that data that may be unorganized In addition to knowledge of analyzing research data health information professionals can also design this data to make it even more valuable in a research setting The most important type of research are those studies that are conducted for the purpose of patient safety Health information may not be working hands on with a patient but from behind the scenes health information can greatly impact this research The example that the article talks about is collecting data for occurrence reports in a patient safety program to reduce medication errors AHIMA The article describes how health information helped in developing and implementing a web based reporting system to collect all this data Just this creation of web based reporting alone created a heightened level of consciousness regarding patient safety issues throughout the entire organization which has a direct impact on healthcare practice among providers AHIMA From that point they then helped develop an educational foundation that focused on patient safety which has the utmost importance in healthcare The third part of that research project was helping to develop the infrastructure that linked smaller hospitals to a tertiary center that served as a resource center for gathering and analyzing patient safety data 

Although none of this was completed alone by health information professionals no project is completed by one stand alone department HIM had a large impact on this project because of the knowledge that HIM can bring to the table which proves another reason why HIM is an essential element to research Before reading this article I knew that health information was important to research but I did not exactly know why or how it can cause an impact in research Now that I can correlate the skills that a health information professional can attain with the necessary qualities for proper research projects I can see how any research project would need a HIM professional to conduct proper research Health information not only benefits research projects but also causes an impact on what they can contribute to any research team HIM professionals are experts with medical records and health information for medical studies have the HIT experience needed for developing and implementing programs and are also knowledgeable in workflow arrangements if it is research in an office setting or creating a research team No research can be done completely by one department quality research is done by multiple departments all working towards the same goal and health information needs to be an addition to any research team In conclusion HIM is needed for research because of the many attributes that they are knowledgeable of but mostly for their ability to create quality data that is useful and needed for research