Essay Example on Health Informatics Application

It is vital for a health set up to establish a better understanding of their health care setup in order to help strengthen these systems for better performance. A strong health care system is organized and functions in accordance to the building blocks of a health system as described by the World Health Organization, WHO. These fundamental blocks include; health financing, health human resources, service delivery, medical products including vaccines and technology, and health information systems. These blocks have been used to help in the assessment of health systems and held policy makers in programming for these systems in various countries.

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The health informatics system at King Abdul Aziz Specialist Hospital is such a comprehensive manual type of system that ensures efficiency in their healthcare system performance. This is shown by a review of the manual document used in the admission into the Radiology department, that is, the body imaging request form. The form is used to retrieve data from potential patients and cover several information queries that are useful for the physician to make important decisions during the diagnosis. The information obtained manually entails details concerning the personal information about the patients name, age and sex. The form requires full completion by the medical officer in attendance on the mode of treatment and examinations carried on the patient and any other contraindications that can be useful in the course of treatment provision.

The manual healthcare system as the one described above is relatively cheaper to install and operate due to the low costs involved in a short term basis especially for startup systems and could also be an affordable back up in case of computerized healthcare system failure. Much time and resources are not spent in the training of personnel involved in operating this system since it requires only minimum efforts. Easy preparation and storage of the manual systems helps in the quick processing of the manual data and information. The data obtained are easy to handle and cannot be easily manipulated by unauthorized individuals. The data when well stored is readily available for every patient. The manual system of health informatics can also be inappropriate and disadvantageous, despite the affordability associated with it.With the use of manual healthcare data system, the medical physicians have a more close contact with the patients and could resource more information beyond the ones stated within the data sheet.

The manual information cannot be easily integrated into other related systems within the health care setup, for instance the laboratory reports and accounting systems. The manual system can be troublesome to maintain owing to the huge paperwork and openness to accessibility by any other personnel within the healthcare center. Lack of confidentiality of the patients health status data is a big problem in the manual set up. Loss of this type of data collection can be disastrous to vital health records and cannot be retrieved due to lack of clear backup. Of more significance is the inability of the coordination between the data obtained and the relevant information vital for the various diagnosis processes.

The manual to some extent seems efficient owing to reasons of best interest to the patients well-being and the performance of the hospital health care systems. The system flourishes partly due to the fact that it is efficient and easy to operate by patients of all educational background. Most patients are not able to effectively handle computer generated processes and can be more conversant with the other manual methods of data and information handling. However, the disadvantages that come with the manual system can be hard to handle resulting in resort into computerized healthcare information systems. After all, the manual healthcare information system can act as a temporary resort in case of the breakdown of the computerized systems.