Summary: The United States Healthcare System

The United States health care system has undergone a myriad of changes, including the introduction and implementation of health information systems (HIS). Because I am primarily a consumer of healthcare in an international forum, I have watched with interests as the United States aims to integrate the use of electronic health records throughout the healthcare platform. Just recently, I had the opportunity to ask an internal medicine physician about the experience of using HIS within an office setting. The physician stated the process is especially helpful for patients who travel and move often. But, in this particular healthcare practice, the physician stated the two biggest HIS obstacles were time consumption and system breakdowns. In fact,

this physician stated the patient load was decreased by three patients per day to accommodate the extra workload created attributed to HIS demands.
Some other barriers, as identified by Balgrosky (2015), include initial upfront expense, lack of access to technical staff, interruption of care in a busy healthcare setting, and decreased work output due to time requirements. However, benefits to the use of HIS have been touted to trump the challenges by improving accuracy, availability, and accuracy of heath data accessed by healthcare providers, benefits to healthcare providers of greater access to health information regarding patient history and patient healthcare needs, and patient empowerment to participate in personal health (Balgrosky, 2015). Yet, organizational realization of these benefits requires leadership strategies that align with organizational processes and culture. One strategy for assisting organizations to achieve successful HIS implementation includes involvement of clinicians and other pertinent stakeholders in the entire HIS process (Gale, 2012). Gale (2012) also suggests introducing the desired HIS process in increments to allow for test scenarios to be initiated, facilitating the identification of problems and resolutions in a timely manner before adding the next building block of the HIS system. In addition, Gale (2012) stresses the importance of maintaining a focus on the ideal HIS goal of achieving improved patient care, rather than losing sight of the goal and becoming engrossed with HIS technology components.