Financing Health Information Technology in Health Services Research Paper

Financing Health Information Technology in Health Services Organization - Research Paper Example The paper also examines the cost-effectiveness and cost efficiencies together with outcomes of implementing health information technology. According to Clarke (2009), health information technology (HIT) has emerged as a critical aid to the transformation of health care service provision. It serves as an electronic health record, a platform for information sharing and a data warehouse. It is also a clinical decision-making support system and a physician practice management system. It also serves the critical functions of scheduling and billing. Organizations considering implementing a HIT system have to critically consider the possible Return on Investment in the chosen system. Returns vary in timing, value, certainty and in recipient. These returns may be either financial or non-financial like better health outcomes, safety owing to legible records and better quality of life. There are also other returns that accrue to other parties rather than the one making the investment. These include patients who get to avoid hospitalizations, and networking benefits that accrue to other actors in the system. Some of the key HIT system functions include decision support for health care providers, electronic health records, computerized data entry, results management and administrative functions. To determine the Return on Investment, one has to look at the different components of the health information technology system and examine their effects. According to Kolodner, Cohn and Friedman (2008), paper-based information management has very limited capacity given the large volume and complexity of transactions in health care, the need to integrate new scientific approaches and technologies and other aspects of information management. Systems such as the Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) simplify the management of information and seamlessly integrate co-related data for easy information access. The RIO of