HIM 317 Principles of Health Information Management

Briefly describe each of the following terms and their relationship to each other:

Community health information network (CHIN)

Regional health information organization (RHINO)

National health information network (NHIN)

Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act)

Once you have defined the terms and their relationship to each other, explain their relationship to the development of a patient-centered management system and electronic health records (EHRs).

Health information management is involved in the acquisition, analysis and protection of medical data that is highly essential in providing quality care to patients. With the advancement of technology, the traditional paper based medical records are replaced by electronic health records.

Health information exchange helps to disseminate health information among healthcare service providers. It involves the sharing of electronic health records in a manner that helps in maintaining the confidentiality and prevents random sharing of patient data (Weaver et al., 2016).

This essay describes the various health information management languages and identifies their relation with respect to patient management and maintenance of electronic health records.

Community Health Information Network (CHIN)

It is an integrated network of computers and other telecommunication systems that enable the healthcare customers, providers, employers and others in a particular set up to share information related to patient health, clinical records and payment related informations. This in turn helps to improve the delivery and efficiency with which healthcare is provided to the individuals. CHIN is very effective in the field of disease management. With the help of CHINs, the disease management systems like the computerized programs can be linked to the other information systems. The benefits include data sharing, internal and external communication, valuable applications, marketing attendance and bonding (Vest et al., 2013).

Regional health information organization (RHINO)

RHINO can be defined as a set of organizations in a particular area that utilize and share the electronic healthcare records or informations, keeping in mind the accepted standards put forth by the healthcare information technology. It can also be defined as an organization involving multiple stakeholders with the aim to create facilities for exchange of health informations. It involves transfer of electronic information related to healthcare among healthcare organizations of a particular region (Campion et al., 2013).

National health information network (NHIN)

The NHIN is a collection of policies, services and standards that with the help of internet allows exchange of health information in a secure manner. The Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) developed the initiative for aiding the health information technology in 2004 (Lenert, Sundwall & Lenert 2012).

Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act)

The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act) was developed in order to promote the use of information technologies and other electronic health records (EHR) in the United States of America in the year 2009 (Bitton, Flier & Jha,  2012).

The relationship between CHIN, RHINO, NHIN and HITECH Act is that they ensure safe exchange of healthcare related information among various stakeholders like healthcare workers, clients, federal agencies and health information exchanges. These in turn helps to provide quality and effective delivery to individuals in various healthcare organizations.

The role of CHIN in providing patient centered management involves its associations with clinical informations, informations related to admission, discharge or transfer of patients in hospitals and planning or arranging the informations associated with patients receiving ambulatory care.

All the members in a particular CHIN, either a customer or healthcare worker are electronically connected so that exchange of electronic healthcare data can be carried out among them. Thus, various healthcare providers can therefore exchange the patient informations in order to provide effective care (Vest et al., 2013).

The role of RHINO in providing patient centered management involves the use of clinical data by various healthcare workers among different organizations for provision of improved care to the patients. This helps the physicians to observe previous health records of the patient, which helps in planning future course of actions.

RHINO is involved in the sharing of electronic health records of patients among different organizations within a particular region. This in turn helps to provide effective patient care and reduce healthcare costs (Campion et al., 2013).

The role of NHIN in providing patient centered management facilitates the healthcare workers like clinicians and physicians to provide quality care to the patients by communicating electronically with other healthcare providers who were previously associated with the particular patient.

Healthcare workers, central agencies, health information exchanges and customers can use the electronic health records for secure exchange of health information at both national and local levels by following the standards and modes of services put forth in NHIN (Lenert, Sundwall & Lenert, 2012).  

The role of HITECH Act in providing patient centered management involves exchange of clinical informations between healthcare organizations and patient authorized bodies with the aim to provide effective care to patients.

According to the HITECH Act, financial support will be provided to healthcare workers for promoting the usefulness of electronic health records until the year 2015. After this, the healthcare organizations, which are failing to carry out the use of electronic health records, will be applicable to penalties (Purcell, 2013).

References

Bitton, A., Flier, L. A., & Jha, A. K. (2012). Health information technology in the era of care delivery reform: to what end?. Jama, 307(24), 2593-2594.

Campion, T. R., Edwards, A. M., Johnson, S. B., & Kaushal, R. (2013). Health information exchange system usage patterns in three communities: practice sites, users, patients, and data. International journal of medical informatics, 82(9), 810-820.

Lenert, L., Sundwall, D., & Lenert, M. E. (2012). Shifts in the architecture of the Nationwide Health Information Network. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 19(4), 498-502.

Purcell, B. M. (2013). Examining the Relationship Between Electronic Health Record Interoperability and Quality Management. Northcentral University.

Vest, J. R., Campion, T. R., Kaushal, R., & HITEC Investigators. (2013). Challenges, alternatives, and paths to sustainability for health information exchange efforts. Journal of Medical Systems, 37(6), 9987.

Weaver, C. A., Ball, M. J., Kim, G. R., & Kiel, J. M. (2016). Healthcare information management systems. Cham: Springer International Publishing.