AN INTRODUCTION TO

HEALTH INFORMATION SYSTEMS

(HIS)
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WHAT IS HIS?

Health Information System : One that

supports all hospital functions and activities
such
as
patient
records,
scheduling,
administration, charge-back and billing, and
often links to or includes clinical information
systems such as RIS. (Radiology Information
System )

ICT

Part of a HIS in which computer systems

are used as ICT-tools (information and
communication technology ) is referred to
as its computer-supported part
The remainder is being referred to as the
non-computer-supported part

WHAT IS HIS?

the

question is not
whether a hospital should be equipped with a
hospital information system or not,
but an appropriate question would be ...
whether the performance should be enhanced,
for example, by using state of the art ICT-tools
HIS must consider all areas of a hospital:
wards
outpatient units
service units (diagnostic, therapy, others)
administrative departments
management/executive units

WHAT IS HIS?
HIS must consider all groups of persons
physicians
nurses
administrative staf
technical staf
health informaticians / health information
managers
...
... and last, but not least,
patients
visitors
suppliers
...

WHAT IS A HIS?

Definitions of HIS abound Occrams rule!

an integrated efort to collect, process, report and use
health information and knowledge to influence policymaking, programme action and research
WHO (2000) Guidance on Needs Assessment for National
Health Information Systems Development.
a set of interrelated components working together to
gather, retrieve, process, store and disseminate information
to support the activities of health system planning, control,
coordination and decision-making, both in management and
service delivery
Jack Smith, in: Health Management Information Systems a
handbook for decision makers. OUP, 2000.
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Hospital Information System

Registration

Consulting

Ward

Nursing
Stores & Purchase

Diet & Kitchen

Pharmacy

And more...

Blood Bank

Laboratory

Radiology

BENEFITS OF HIS
Investment in HIS may result in many benefits (WHO):
helping decision makers to detect and control
emerging and endemic health problems, monitor
progress towards health goals, and promote equity;
empowering individuals and communities with timely
and understandable health-related information, and
drive improvements in quality of services;
strengthening the evidence base for efective health
policies, permitting evaluation of scale-up eforts, and
enabling innovation through research;
improving governance, mobilising new resources, and
ensuring accountability in the way they are used.
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HEALTH CARE DATA

TYPES OF HEALTH CARE DATA

Patient-Specific Data
Clinical Data
Administrative Data
Financial and Billing Data
Aggregate Health Care Data
Disease and Procedure Indexes
Cost Reports
Health Care Statistics
Outcome Measures and Balanced
Scorecards

HEALTH CARE INFORMATION

SYSTEMS
Foundational Terms & Definitions
NHIN

National Health Information

Network

An Internet-based data exchange that will

allow medical providers to share health data
to improve care
Automated prescriptions
Accuracy of patient information

FOUNDATIONAL TERMS &

DEFINITIONS
RHIO (Regional Health Information

Organization):
A regional organization of
stakeholders
enabling the exchange and use of health
information to
facilitate improvements in
healthcare quality .

FOUNDATIONAL TERMS &

DEFINITIONS
EMR Electronic Medical Record
An Electronic Medical Record facilitates:
access of patient data by clinical staf at any
given location
accurate and complete claims processing by
insurance companies
building automated checks for drug and
allergy interactions
clinical notes
prescriptions
scheduling sending to and viewing labs

INFORMATICS TERMS AND

DEFINITIONS
PHR Personal Health Record
The Personal Health Record (PHR) is an
Internet-based set of tools that allows people
to access and coordinate their lifelong health
information and make appropriate parts of it
available to those who need it.

INFORMATICS TERMS AND

DEFINITIONS
PHRs ofer an integrated and comprehensive
view of health information, including
information people generate themselves such
as symptoms and medication use, information
from doctors such as diagnoses and test
results, and information from their
pharmacies and insurance companies.

Individuals access their PHRs via the Internet,

using state-of-the-art security and privacy
controls, at any time and from any location.
Access on a local computer with download
capabilities
Paper records

PHR
Family members, doctors or school nurses can
see portions of a PHR when
necessary and emergency room staf can
retrieve vital information from it in a crisis.
People can use their PHR as a communications
hub: to send email to doctors, transfer
information to specialists, receive test results
and access online self-help tools. PHR connects
each of us to the incredible potential of modern
health care and gives us control over our own
information.

FOUNDATIONAL TERMS &

DEFINITIONS
HIPAA Assurance:

The Health Insurance Portability and

Accountability Act mandates that
healthcare providers and health plans
protect the privacy of patient records;
one implication for medical IT providers
is that a VPN can be used to secure
transmission of medical records over the
Internet

TYPES OF (HEALTH) INFORMATION SYSTEMS

ArtificialIntelligence

Strategic
information
systems

Decisionsupportsystems,
simulationsystems,
financialforecasting,
performanceassessment

Tacticalinformation
systems

Managementinformation
systems

Operationalinformationsystems

Electronicpatientrecords,
payroll,invoicingsystems,patient
administrationsystems,
purchasing/inventory,office18
automation

HEALTH INFORMATION SUBSYSTEMS

A health information system can be considered to consist of
several separate subsystems:

Data collection based on patient and service records and

reporting from community health workers, health workers and
health facilities
Programme-specific monitoring and evaluation
(ex: EPI, Malaria, TB, HIV/AIDS)
Administration and resource management
(budget, personnel, supplies)

Disease surveillance and outbreak notification

Data generated through household surveys (KPC, DHS)

Registration of vital events and censuses

(births, deaths and causes of death)

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HISsubsystemsrarelyinteract

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Development steps of HIS

GMIS
Geographical
Management
Information System

CIS

Clinical
Information
System

MIS

Management
Information
System

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THIS INFORMATION CAN BE CATEGORIZED

AS

22

23

INFORMATION WILL BE USED BY THE

AREAS
Patient Administration
Clinical Management
Resource Management
Financial Management
Management Information System
And more

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Laboratory

Data Entry
& Results
Review

Event
Monitor

Medical
Logic
Modules

Billing &
Financial
Specialized
Encoders
MedLEE

Pharmacy

Database
Interface
Medical
Entities
Dictionary

Radiology
Patient
Database

Research
Databases
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HIS HAVE THE ABILITY TO LINK THE FOLLOWING

MAJOR PLAYERS
Laboratories
Pharmacies
Researchers
Doctors and consultants
Banks and financial institutions
Administrators
And knowledge managers

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 HIS

should provide

information, primarily about patients, in a way

that it is correct, pertinent and up to date, in time,

accessible by the right persons at the right site in a
usable format
knowledge, primarily about diseases, but also,
for example, about the effects of drug interaction, to
support diagnosis and therapy
information about the quality of patient care,
hospital performance and costs
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