HCA 410 Week 1 Assignment

HCA 410  Week 1 Assignment | Southwestern College

When healthcare organizations implement healthcare information technology, there are several factors to consider.

This begins with the decision on how paper records will be entered into the Electronic Health Record (EHR) or if the organization decides to archive these records and start a new electronic health record.

Another factor is to ensure interoperability between the EHR (or any new technology) and existing technology in use. Systems are interoperable when at least one system is able to translate any information received or sent by another system. Factor in all the available clinical data and this rapidly becomes a difficult challenge for healthcare providers.

The Health Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) provide a definition of Interoperability. Within this article is a link published by the Office of the National Coordinator of Health IT (ONC) on the Final Interoperability Roadmap. This link includes a more detailed PDF of the roadmap.

Health Information Exchanges become the foundation for Interoperability.  An article at HealthIT Buzz discusses the Growth of exchanges across the United States.

Your assignment will be--After reading this article, as well as the various related articles found in Deets Library;  Healthcare IT News; HealthIT.gov; or other relevant sites---

• Please develop a paper describing the benefits of interoperability as well as the barriers that need to be overcome to enable interoperability that meets the definition put forth in the HIMSS article.

• Discuss how healthcare organizations moving forward to meet the interoperability requirement set forth by the HITECH act.   

• What is the industry doing overall to help the initiative?  

• Be sure to provide examples to support your positions.