IMPORTANCE OF HEALTH MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM (HMIS) ON THE HEALTH SECTOR.

 

USAID/Zambia, in collaboration with BASICS and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), for several years has provided both technical and logistic support to the development of a new Health Management Information System (HMIS) in Zambia. Technological advancement has brought evolution in every sector, making the management process speedy and seamless, serving more people worldwide. The healthcare sector is no exception. The arena of healthcare informatics, combined with healthcare data, information technology, and business, has gained a huge boost from technology. Health Information System (HIS) is such a technological boon for the health industry, helping the management of healthcare data with utter efficiency. The implementation of this system helps in improving the quality of patient care, reducing operational cost, making administration data error-free and shaping the entire internal management process more organized.The following are the significance of hmis in the Zambian health sector.

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Organized and Coordinated Treatment Process

Health Information System is a technology-driven system that makes the process of sharing protected health information (PHI) between organizations and providers really hassle-free. Also, because of this system, patients are able to get seamless and coordinated treatment from healthcare providers.(WHO, 2010) Especially, the patients whose diagnoses need cross-specialty treatment coordination and substantial medical information management get the maximum benefits from HIS. And above all, it improves the delivery of the care and outcomes of the patients.

Improved Patient Safety

As you get easy access to patients’ data with the help of Health Information Systems, you can save all the information and share across multiple databases to improve the safety of the patients. Even you can get alert notification whenever there are any issues related to patients’ health. For example, the healthcare providers can receive an alert from program security checking about the harmful effects patients may experience on any particular medicine if they have that without being prescribed. This way you can avoid committing any serious mistake that happens due to the lack of details available during making the decisions.(WHO, 2003)

Betterment in Patient Care

By collecting and saving patients’ information, including diagnosis reports, medical history, allergy reactions, vaccinations, treatment information plans, test results, etc., Health Information Systems provide the healthcare providers a complete and orderly framework that helps them interact with their patients in a better way and eventually deliver care to them in a more efficient way.

Instant & Seamless Accessibility to Patients’ Details

According to a report, published by World Health Organization (WHO), “The Health Information System collects data from the health sector and other relevant sectors, analyses the data and ensures their overall quality, relevance and timeliness, and converts data into information for health-related decision-making.” And the more reliable the information is, you have the better chance to make any decision, implement any policy, execute any regulation, conduct health research, training, and development program and have a check on service delivery.(UNFPA,1995).

Minimized Operational Expense

Health Information Systems Enable health organizations to assign resources in a  planned manner and save potentially remarkable amounts of expenses, energy, and supplies. In a nutshell, you can make your healthcare service better for your patients while saving lots of money.

Saving of Time

Other than saving money, Health Information Systems help in saving time as well. By making all the patients’ information computerized and personal activities automated, HIS saves a significant amount of time in making patient care coordinated and hospital management seamless.(UNFPA, 1995).

Benefits for the community

Enhanced community awareness will trigger an increase in the quality of health care,resulting in increased patient satisfaction.This will in turn promote the appropriate use of the health services, which will be catering to the precise needs and aspirations of the community.

In addition to being essential for monitoring and evaluation, the information system also serves broader objectives, such as providing an alert and early warning capability, supporting patient and health facility management, enabling planning, underpinning and stimulating research, permitting health situation and trends analyses, orienting global reporting, and reinforcing communication of health challenges to diverse users. Information is of little value if it is not available in formats that meet the needs of multiple users,

policy-makers, planners, managers, health-care providers, communities and individuals. Dissemination and communication are therefore essential attributes of the health information system.

Health planners and decision-makers need different kinds of information including:

•    health determinants (socioeconomic, environmental, behavioural and genetic factors) and the contextual environments within which the health system operates);

•    inputs to the health system and related processes (policy and organization, health infrastructure, facilities and equipment, costs, human and financial resources and health information systems);

•    the performance or outputs of the health system (availability, accessibility, quality and use of health information and services, responsiveness of the system to user needs, and financial risk protection);

•    health outcomes (mortality, morbidity, disease outbreaks, health status, disability and wellbeing); and

•    health inequities (determinants, coverage of use of services, and health outcomes, and including key stratifiers such as sex, socioeconomic status, ethnic group and geographical location).

•    A good health information system brings together all relevant partners to ensure that users of health information have access to reliable, authoritative, usable, understandable and comparative data

 conventional HMIS enables monitoring of service delivery in terms of access, coverage, expenditure, human resources, disease profiles and health out- comes. The use of an HMIS in support of health systems performance assessment and to address deficiencies and gaps in the services has often been recommended by researchers ]. The question is whether use of a traditional HMIS to track quality of care dimensions would bring about improvement in patient satisfaction of health facilities specifically and the quality of care provided in general.

In conclusion, The health management information system (HMIS) is an instrument which could be used to improve patient satisfaction with health services by tracking certain dimensions of service quality. Quality can be checked by comparing perceptions of services delivered with the expected standards. The objective of the HMIS would be to record information on health events and check the quality of services at different levels of health care. The importance of patient assessment is a part of the concept of giving importance to patient’s views in improving the quality of health services.

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REFERENCE

Mainstreaming sectoral statistical systems in Africa: a guide to planning a coordinated national statistical system. Version 1.0. Tunis, African Development Bank, 2007 (http://www.paris21.org/documents/2959.pdf.

Health Metrics Network. Framework and standards for country health information systems. Geneva, World Health Organization, 2008.

World health report 2000. Health systems: improving performance. Geneva,World Health Organization, 2010.

Evans T, Stansfield S: Health information in the new millennium:A gathering storm? Bull World Health Organ 2003, 81:856.

WHO: Clinical Data Assessment Guidelines: strengthening the quality of data for improving health services. WHO, Geneva 1997.

3. UNFPA: Management Information System for Reproductive Health/Family Planning: Myths and Realities. Country support team for East and south- East Africa1995.

Zambia health management information system (HMIS): technical assistance in information systems Zambia (14 July-September 1, 1997) moh.zm.com.