Answer 2 for DNP 805 Discuss the type of integration data from your defined patient population in Topic 4 DQ 1 would require
The electronic health record EHR or the electronic medical record (EMR) is one of the most important sources for data analysis. It can be used today to drive decision-making in public health, identify risk factors for infectious diseases and treat them, and provide the continuity of care among various medical institutions while improving the quality of healthcare and continue to push forward medical and scientific research (Wang, 2019). Data Integration is the process of collecting a cluster of raw data from different sources and combining them into one source and it is stored and distributed to various applications from the storage place as new data. So, data mining would yield great knowledge of information needed to provide useful insights for research that would enable the compatibility of the EMR with different hospitals. It is the process of merging the systems from two different companies into one centralized data set. So, the integration and interoperability of healthcare data from different sources of information and communication technology (ICT) in a region or a country is of the utmost necessity for care and treatments in hospitals (Sreemathy, Naveen Durai, Lakshmi Priya, Deebika, Suganthi, & Aisshwarya, 2021), (Wang, 2019).
Integration is often times looked upon as easy and just inputting data into a system but it is beyond that. The systems that have targeted only the technical aspects has led to many failures because the two systems are not built the same and may have different levels, and vendor policies, so there is a need to include the social factors as well and the broader context in the integration process (Bjørnstad, & Ellingsen, 2019).
The patient population that I would like to integrate their data information would be the chronic heart failure (CHF) patients. It is a chronic debilitating disease with a very high mortality rate and severe symptom burden for a long duration. The physical symptoms of CHF are shortness of breath (SOB), Dyspnea, pain, fatigue, decreased physical activity, anxiety and depression because of the declining quality of life (QoL), (Siouta, Heylen, Aertgeerts, Clement, Janssens, Van Cleemput, & Menten, 2021). The integration data from this population would be the patient demographic which includes the age, gender, allergies, weight, admitting symptoms, prior diagnosis, history and physical with any chronic symptoms such as dyspnea, lower extremity edema, any use of oxygen, medications, laboratories, diagnostics, procedures, treatment care plans, and any tolerable physical activity. For there to be an integration between the clinical and the administrative systems, the integration process has to comply with the ethical and legal standards of the facilities and the regulators. For all the clinical and administrative systems to integrate, there are integrative systems in place like the enterprise resource planning systems, enterprise application integration, component ware, and middleware. Also, the standardization of systems is also necessary with integration and many more. The most recent being the open EHR standard 17 and international initiative to structure and standardize clinical knowledge by global consensus (Bjørnstad, & Ellingsen, 2019).
IT systems in hospitals support cooperative work. Schmidt and Simone28 argue that cooperative work interleaves distributed tasks; articulation work manages the consequences of the distributed nature of the work. Hence, information technology (IT) systems in hospitals need coordination and articulation work to function (Bjørnstad, & Ellingsen, 2019).
Improving the processes for patients and providers with the policy approaches must be evaluated to make sure that they remove unnecessary steps and complications for patients, while decreasing administrative burdens for providers. Standards and approaches must reflect how information flows through the health care system, the technical systems that are needed, and the crucial role of health information professionals play in translating across clinical and administrative domains. Also, the sharing of health information across payers and providers requires consideration of privacy policies, to ensure that only the minimum necessary information is shared, and they are not used beyond the specific transaction limited (American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), 2020)
References:
American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA). (2020, February). AHIMA Policy Statement on Integrating Clinical and Administrative Health Data. AHIMA Home. https://ahima.org/media/cufldn1p/icad-policy-statement-final.pdf
Bjørnstad, C., & Ellingsen, G. (2019). Data work: A condition for integrations in health care. Health Informatics Journal, 25(3), 526-535. https://doi.org/10.1177/1460458219833114
