Determine what is Health Information Technology Explain Types of Health Information Technology & Healthcare Software System Illuminate Telehealth Technologies And Their Contribution In Improving Teleconsultations Give details about Potential Benefits of Telemedicine Explain barriers that have slowed the development of telemedicine. Explain Health Technology Assessment and its purposes Describe types and examples of Telemedicine Technology

1. HEALTH INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY
By Dr Ghada Elhessewi
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2. LEARNING OBJECTIVES: BY THE END OF THIS
LECTURE STUDENTS WIL BE ABLE TO:
 Determine what is Health Information Technology
 Explain Types of Health Information Technology & Healthcare Software
System
 Illuminate Telehealth Technologies And Their Contribution In Improving
Teleconsultations
 Give details about Potential Benefits of Telemedicine
 Explain barriers that have slowed the development of telemedicine.
 Explain Health Technology Assessment and its purposes
 Describe types and examples of Telemedicine Technology

3. HEALTH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
• Health information technology (health IT) involves the
processing, storage, and exchange of health information in an
electronic environment.
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4. TELEHEALTH,
• Use of communication technologies to provide and support healthcare
at a distance, can be as simple as two doctors talking on the phone
about a patient’s care or as complex as the use of robotic technology to
perform surgery from a remote site
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5. E-HEALTH
• E-health including patient portals, remote monitoring of vital signs, continuing medical
education, and nursing call centres are all considered part of telehealth.
• Wearable and implantable wireless sensors offer an attractive set of e-health
applications, including medical and physiological monitoring (e.g., temperature,
respiration, heart rate, blood pressure). Due to their small size, such sensors might have a
very limited battery-enabled power supply.
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6. WHAT IS HEALTH INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY?
• Health Information Technology (HIT) refers to:
A system designed to store, share, and analyse the data collected in any
healthcare facility. It could be private as well as public clinics, hospitals,
and doctor’s private chambers. It also collects, organizes
and manages patients’ electronic medical records.
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7. WIDESPREAD USE OF HEALTH IT WITHIN THE HEALTH
CARE INDUSTRY WILL
Improve the quality of health care,
Prevent medical errors,
Reduce health care costs,
Increase administrative efficiencies,
Saves time and effort, which is spent daily on managerial tasks by streamlining
operations. Thus, organizations can focus more on patient treatment and follow-up
Decrease paperwork,
Expand access to affordable health care.
The privacy and security of electronic health information be ensured as this information
is maintained and transmitted electronically
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8. 8 TYPES OF HEALTH INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY
& HEALTHCARE SOFTWARE SYSTEM
• The use of technology is transforming the healthcare industry. It has
accelerated development and evidence on patient care.
• It’s no surprise that more and more healthcare centers are adopting
the latest technology and taking steps to transform the way they
operate.
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9. It takes care of different administrative aspects of practice.
It is directed towards automating facility’s clerical work, such as managing various
documents, scheduling appointments, and more.
It doesn’t include patients’ medical data. However, it does take care of insurance claims. It
automatically processes claims, handles billing and payments, and also generates reports.
Regardless of the size, all healthcare providers — from a single doctor practitioner care to a
large hospital — can make use of medical management software.
1. Medical Practice Management System
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10. To list out some of its benefits:
• By automating routine clerical tasks, it allows to concentrate more on
the quality of patient care.
• It gives easy access to healthcare data. You can view all the
documents online.
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11. 2- Electronic Health Records (EHR)
 Electronic health records is another type of hospital management information
system that is basically concerned about the patient’s medical information.
 Earlier, doctors or nurses had to document every medical detail of their
patients on paper. But now, they can simply fill out all the information on the
EHR system.
 it can be accessed instantly using a mobile or computer. It also enables
doctors to easily share data across different departments, allowing them to
provide quick and accurate treatment.
 It deals with data management, which generally contains information on
patients’ medical history, allergies, laboratory charges, and more.
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12. Some of the benefits of implementing EHR
include:
• It increases efficiency by eliminating paperwork and giving
immediate access to patients’ data.
• It improves the quality of patient care as the same information is
shared across all departments, avoiding any medical errors.
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13. 3. E-prescribing Software
• E-prescribing software is a beneficial technology as it enables doctors to generate
prescriptions electronically.
• It allows them to directly send prescriptions to the pharmacy in just a few clicks, and
when the patient gets there, the store is ready with their supplements.
• The system eliminates the need to create handwritten notes, which are generally
hard-to-read and instead generate an understandable prescription.
• Plus, there is no prescription mix up — pharmacist ensures patient safety by giving
them the correct one. It also eliminates the chances of misplacing a prescription.
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14. The advantages of using e-prescribing software
are:
• It allows medical providers to send prescriptions directly to
pharmacies, without the risk of getting misplaced.
• It gives quick and easy access to a patient’s medication history with
the help of a pharmacy’s database.
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15. 4. Remote Patient Monitoring
• With the help of RPM, medical sensors can read our body functions and
send data from anywhere to healthcare professionals at the facility. The
data enables doctors to predict and prevent any event that otherwise
may have caused serious issues.
• This data can then be used to make recommendations on health
conditions.
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16. The benefits of using remote patient
monitoring:
• It is reducing the cost that comes with hospital readmission of chronic
disease and assists in post-discharge care as well.
• It can help monitor a patient’s glucose level or blood pressure from
anywhere across the world. Thus, it results in improved patient care.
• It is leading to better quality health care. And as a larger picture, the
data being collected can be used to study bigger population health down
the road.
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17. 5. Master Patient Index (MPI)
• Master patient index is a crucial part of the hospital management
system as it aims at connecting patient records from more than one
database.
• It is generally used by hospitals or large clinics whereby they enter data
regarding their patients. Once stored, it can be used for future
references by any institute sharing the database. This MPI creates an
index of all medical records for a specific patient, which is easily
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18. The main purpose of MPI
• Is to reduce duplication of patient records and also
to avoid inaccuracy of information that can result in
wrong treatment.
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19. 6. Patient Portal
• Patient portals provide a platform where patients can access their health-
related data using any device. It includes all the information stored in an
EHR, such as patients’ medical history, treatments, and other medications
previously taken.
• Patient portals also allow users to schedule appointments, view bills, and
make payments online. They can use their personal devices, including
smartphones, tablets, or computer to access it.
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20. • In fact, some of the patient portals even facilitate patients to have a
conversation with healthcare professionals. So instead of having to
wait in line for hours to schedule an appointment, a patient can now
simply log in, check their doctor’s availability and also, have a look at
their lab reports.
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21. 7. Urgent Care Applications
• Urgent care application is a type of health management
information system that keeps track of patients that might require
immediate attention.
• It enables patients to skip the waiting room and get the care
instantly. Besides, it provides patients with knowledge about
health-related queries, informative health articles, and even let
them track their medical care status.
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22. Some of the benefits of implementing urgent
care applications are:
• It increases patients’ satisfaction rate as urgent care app
provides quick service to them.
• Urgent care apps provide medical help 24/7 hours a day.
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23. 8. Medical Billing Software
• The most integral type of health management system is the medical billing solution.
• It is one of the most time-consuming processes, and yet one of the critical ones.
Healthcare facilities are always running busy, and they have little time to spare for
managerial tasks. Billing software makes it easy by automatically generating medical
bills and handling the entire workflow.
• The software also takes care of insurance claims and verification, payment tracking,
and processing. It sends out alerts for late payments or if there is any pending bill
from the hospital’s end.
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24. TELEHEALTH
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25. WHAT IS TELEHEALTH?
• Telehealth is broadly defined as the use of communications technologies
to provide and support healthcare at a distance. Telehealth has become a
valuable tool for improved health through combined advances in a
number of areas including communications, computer science,
informatics, and medical technologies.
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26. Telehealth Technologies:
Types And Their Contribution In
Improving Teleconsultations
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27. 1. Teleconsultations
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• Allow a physician in a rural area to receive advice from a
specialist who may be in a distant location, about patients
with special or complex conditions.
• Such consultations can be as simple as a phone call.
Increasingly, they involve more sophisticated sharing of
medical information such as computed tomography
[imaging] (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), or
ultrasound scans. These images can be taken by the local
physician, incorporated into an electronic medical record,
and sent to the specialist for diagnosis and treatment
recommendations.

28. 2. Intraoperative
Monitoring
(IOM)
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• This technique that allows a surgeon to perform
continuous checking, recording, and testing during a
difficult surgical procedure.
• In neurological surgeries, IOM is used to detect
potentially damaging changes in brain, spinal cord, and
peripheral nerve function prior to irreversible damage.

29. • Staff in rural hospitals rarely have the expertise to perform this
type of monitoring. Remote IOM uses systems to transmit data,
voice, and images over the Internet to a site for monitoring by an
expert. The expert can then let the on-site surgeons know if any
problems arise as the surgery progresses.
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30. 3. Tele-homecare
(THC)
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• Tele-homecare (THC) provides the remote care and
reassurance needed to allow people with chronic
conditions, dementia, or a high risk of falling to
remain living in their own homes. The approach
focuses on reacting to emergency events and raising
a help response quickly. Deterioration can be
spotted at an early stage before an accident occurs.

31. • Advanced systems use sensors to monitor serious changes in chronic conditions as
well as other health risks including floods, fires, and gas leaks.
• Such sensors can also alert caregivers if a person with dementia leaves the house.
When a sensor is activated, a radio signal is sent to a central unit in the user’s
home. This signal automatically calls a monitoring center where appropriate action
can be taken such as contacting a caregiver, family member, or doctor, or sending
emergency services.
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32. 4. Medical
Diagnosis and
Treatment at the
“Point-of-Care”
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• This refers to the ability to test and treat patients rapidly at
sites close to where they live, rather than coming to the
doctor or hospital for tests, waiting days or weeks for
results, and then returning to the doctor for treatment.
• Point-of-care medicine is particularly useful for
communities with limited access to large healthcare
facilities, such as rural or low-resource areas.

33. • Point-of-care medicine relies on portable diagnostic and monitoring devices that can be
delivered to remote areas, combined with telehealth technologies. Such systems allow
healthcare workers in remote areas to test patients and instantly send the results to experts to
make a diagnosis and send back instructions for proper care.
• Portable devices have been developed that can measure blood gases, electrolytes, blood
chemistries, glucose levels, and even detect cancer. This capability greatly enhances
healthcare for patients in remote and underserved areas.
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34. DEVELOPMENTS IN
TELEHEALTH/TELEMEDICINE
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35. SMARTPHONE-BASED DEVICE PROVIDES RAPID
CANCER DIAGNOSIS AT LOW COST
• National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB)-funded
researchers have developed a smartphone-based device that can diagnose
cancer in less than an hour at a cost of under $2 per patient.
• Certain types of cancer can be detected using biological fluids such as blood,
saliva, or other aspirates.
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36. • The device could enable point-of-care cancer diagnostics in remote areas where a local clinic
collects patient samples and must send them out to a central service that reports the results in
several days—With the new device, biological fluid from patients is mixed with antibodies that
capture cancer cells. The smartphone, with a snap-on imaging module, then takes pictures of the
cell-bead mixture.
• The pictures are transmitted to Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) where, within seconds,
computer analysis classifies the sample as high-risk, low-risk, or benign.
• This enables the patient to receive a diagnosis and initiation of treatment in a single trip to the
clinic. The research team is bringing the system to small village clinics in Botswana to train local
healthcare workers to screen for lymphoma
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37. Importance Of Telehealth Services
• Telehealth is a mean of increasing access to care and improving health outcomes.
• Reduce costs.
• Radiologists and dermatologists have relied on store-and-forward techniques, for instance
transmission of videos or digital imagery (e.g., X-rays) through a secure electronic communications
system,
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38. • The presence of Internet linked mobile computers, such as iPads, and video
platforms, such as Skype, enable “direct” consultations between providers and
patients located hundreds of miles apart.
• The availability of telehealth is of particular interest for patients who live in areas
that are inadequately served. Access to certain medical specialties, such as
oncologists, is limited in rural areas.
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39. • Telemedicine involves a combination of medical products and
services. Accordingly, there are numerous products and
services comprising telemedicine, ranging from medical
devices to delivery systems.
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TELEMEDICINE SECTOR

40. PRODUCTS:
• Many medical devices are capable of collecting and electronically transmitting information
(either immediately or in the future) can be digitized to be used in telemedicine applications.
These include:
• blood glucose meters, pulse oximeters, blood pressure cuffs, CT scanners, and MRI machines.
• Some of these devices are targeted toward home healthcare and the needs/wants of patients
interested in closely monitoring their health status, while others facilitate the exchange of
information between hospitals, clinics, and physicians.
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PRODUCTS AND SERVICES WITHIN THE
TELEMEDICINE SECTOR

41. SERVICES:
The use of medical products with electronic exchange capabilities allows for the provision of a wide range of
telemedicine-related services. These include
• store-and-forward technology for documents and images;
• remote monitoring of a patient’s vital signs;
• secure messaging; e-mail exchange of data, alerts and reminders between physicians and patients;
• and having a specialist remotely available by videoconference to observe and diagnose a patient’s
condition and recommend treatment.
• Electronic exchange of prescription information between physicians, pharmacies, and consumers is an
additional service.
• Other telemedicine services include transmitting information to alert communities about pandemics and
other widespread health threats.
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42. POTENTIAL BENEFITS OF TELEMEDICINE
• Manage chronic diseases effectively:
Chronic conditions such as diabetes, congestive heart failure, and obstructive pulmonary disease
require long-term treatment and use of multiple specialists, all of which significantly increase costs.
Widespread telemedicine adoption will allow vital sign information and monitoring to be gathered
frequently (instead of only during periodic physician visits).
Messages can then be simultaneously transmitted to the treatment team, allowing for possible
early intervention (a physician or hospital visit) if a patient’s condition deteriorates.
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43. • Improve care of elderly, home-bound, and physically challenged patients:
Use of telemedicine to reduce the frequency of visits to physician offices and hospital
emergency rooms can potentially lead to greater convenience and compliance for elderly
and home-based patients.
By reducing the frequency of visits by remote monitoring and e-mail information
exchange, more timely patient intervention can occur before acute care treatment is
necessary.
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44. • Empower patients regarding their own health:
Raising the responsibility level of patients to take their medicines and report basic health
metrics to their physician(s) by using telemedicine represents an opportunity for patients and
caregivers to play a greater role in their own care.
By giving the patient the ability to directly see the correlation between adherence to treatment
regimen and improvement in health, patients will more likely comply with treatment protocols,
leading to faster recovery.
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45. Improve competitiveness of by controlling healthcare costs:
With rising healthcare costs, telemedicine can provide a tool for companies and
insurers to better control and manage healthcare spending by enabling greater
use of remote monitoring of a patient’s condition to minimize the need for acute
care intervention, and more efficient deployment of healthcare professionals.
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46. Improve community and population health:
Electronic sharing of images and video consults (a component of telemedicine) allows
for: an easier exchange of information between public health services about a rare or
unusual health condition; better measurement of chronic disease in a population; and
the addressing of a public health crisis such as pandemic flu.
Faster awareness of current threats will help public health providers make better decisions
regarding population health in these situations.
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47. Address possible future shortages of healthcare professionals
Telemedicine services, such as videoconferencing and remote consults, better utilize
current staff, whether at a hospital, physician’s office, or via home-care.
The availability of telemedicine technologies and procedures can also alleviate potential
shortages of healthcare professionals by enabling remote consultations by physicians and
nurses for patients located in other states or countries
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48. Reduce deaths, injuries, and infections:
Increased use of telemedicine across all settings could reduce the incidence of adverse
events caused by medication errors arising from inaccurate patient information, leading
to more consistent patient treatment by limiting the number of hospital visits and
reducing exposure to illness from other patients.
In addition, electronic prescribing can help reduce errors in dispensing medicines by
eliminating the need to decipher handwritten prescriptions.
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49. Extend reach to underserved/rural communities :
• The presence of telemedicine services in rural areas has been shown to improve
care by decreasing transportation costs; more efficiently deploying healthcare
professionals and specialists; and offering timely healthcare delivery without the
obstacles.
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50. BARRIERS HAVE SLOWED THE DEVELOPMENT OF
TELEMEDICINE, INCLUDING:
• Concerns about security and privacy.
• Lack of common standards and certification decreasing the likelihood of
interoperability between medical devices, videoconferencing, and other
systems.
• Availability of broadband Internet, medical access, and education,
especially in rural and underserved areas.
• Limited funding for telemedicine
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51. HEALTH TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT
• Health technology assessment (HTA) is the systematic evaluation of
properties, effects, or other impacts of health technology.
• HTA may address the direct and intended consequences of technologies as
well as their indirect and unintended consequences.
• HTA is conducted by interdisciplinary groups using explicit analytical
frameworks, drawing from a variety of methods.
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52. • Regulatory agencies about whether to permit the commercial use (e.g., marketing)
of a drug, device, or other regulated technology
• Clinicians and patients about the appropriate use of healthcare interventions for a
particular patient’s clinical needs and circumstances
• Health professional associations about the role of a technology in clinical protocols
or practice guidelines
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PURPOSES OF HTA
IT INFORMS:

53. • Hospitals, healthcare networks, group purchasing organizations, and other healthcare organizations
about decisions regarding technology acquisition and management
• Standards-setting organizations for health technology and healthcare delivery regarding the
manufacture, performance, appropriate use, and other aspects of healthcare technologies
• Government health department officials about undertaking public health programs (e.g., immunization,
screening, and environmental protection programs)
• Lawmakers and other political leaders about policies concerning technological innovation, research and
development, regulation, payment, and delivery of healthcare
• Research agencies about evidence gaps and unmet health needs
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54. THANK YOU
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