Discussion: Benefits of Health Information Exchange Technology

Health Information Exchange TechnologyStudents’ Name
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 Discussion: Benefits of Health Information Exchange Technology
Health Information Exchange Technology is technology which is harnessed to better the delivery of healthcare to patients. The better distribution of healthcare organization benefits the public at large which are the intended customers. Like to any other business which tries to exchange its information electronically, it always comes with a lot of risks and benefits.
Through the availability of Healthcare technology, it will always help to provide the patient’s information during emergency times. For example, in case of an accident and the patient is unable to explain, the health information technology can help in retrieving it quickly through its technique. The other advantage of it is in case of any disaster, the information which is stored electronically will not be lost compared to the paperwork (Shekelle et al. 2006).
Health information technology also improves care. When information about health care, which is received from other facilities is accessed, leads to better means of handling the matters that are related to the healthcare. It means that the care one receives does not interact poorly with the previous health care. It also makes the records of patients’ medication always available when required. Other benefits of health information are that it helps in tracking for protection, and also increases safety by reducing duplication (Jha et al 2008).

Identity theft is one of the risks which is faced by health information exchange. Though identity theft may affect both paperwork and electronic file, it will have the impact on many more records compared to paperwork because of risk which does not only affect healthcare information exchange but also but also other sectors such as defense and finance (Walker et al. 2005).
Though health information sole purpose is to improve the delivery of healthcare, just like paperwork has some errors. In case the data of the patients were entered incorrectly, it will always remain so until it is corrected. The best thing about the implementation of this technology is that it will ever provide checks and balance which the paperwork system will not always present. The health information exchange is facing a lot of threats as the world becomes more digital. The hackers may want to still personal information from their servers. The good thing is that this health care technology benefits from anti-hacking technologies developed by other sectors (Buntin et al. 2011).
Though the health care system is facing some severe threats the benefits of implementation of this technology outweigh the risks since this risks can always be mitigated

References
Shekelle, P., Morton, S. C., & Keeler, E. B. (2006). Costs and benefits of health information technology.
Jha, A. K., Doolan, D., Grandt, D., Scott, T., & Bates, D. W. (2008). The use of health information technology in seven nations. International journal of medical informatics, 77(12), 848-854.
Buntin, M. B., Burke, M. F., Hoaglin, M. C., & Blumenthal, D. (2011). The benefits of health information technology: a review of the recent literature shows predominantly positive results. Health Affairs, 30(3), 464-471.
Walker, J., Pan, E., Johnston, D., & Adler-Milstein, J. (2005). The value of healthcare information exchange and interoperability. Health Affairs, 24, W5.