Identify a disease or condition served by the physician group

Identify a disease or condition served by the physician group.
Determine what patient information is needed and from where to retrieve it.
Compare your overall office data to the national benchmarks.
Typically, in the workplace, the physician group’s specialty area (cancer, diabetes, dermatology, et cetera) would dictate the disease or condition for which you would be collecting information. For the purpose of this assessment, however, you may select the disease or condition that interests you from this list:

Asthma.
Diabetes.
Myocardial infarction.
HIV/AIDS.
Cancer.

Information Collection

Introduction

Diabetes is a common root cause of diseases and illnesses and, therefore, has a massive effect on the well-being of individuals and healthcare systems all over the world (Roglic, 2016). This proposal aims to address diabetes due to its high complexity of management and the significant need for continuous quality care. The purpose is to provide the best healthcare services with the highest patient outcome performances and adherence to national benchmark patterns, aligning our practice to the best healthcare standards.

Patient Population

This study will look at the medical records of patients with diabetes for our practice from the last few years (i.e., five years). We have decided to conduct the study during this period to generate a significant number of observations for robust analysis, enabling us to detect the trends in the results and evaluate the effectiveness of treatment protocols. Moreover, through five years of study, we can appraise the long-term results and the sticking to treatment plans. It plays a vital role in managing chronic conditions such as diabetes (Roglic, 2016). With this approach, our work can account for the overall patient development and different treatments in the long run.

Information Systems and Documentation

The primary source of data for this study will be our Electronic Health Records (EHR) system, which incorporates several vital functionalities essential for comprehensive diabetes management:

• Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE): This process enables order entries to be entered correctly for treatments and drugs, thereby minimizing mistakes and ensuring patients receive the corresponding drugs. It is acknowledged that the real-time processing capability of CGM technology makes it possible to make instant updatings and adjustments, which are essential when the diabetes condition of diabetic patients is dynamic.
• Pharmacy Information Systems: These systems monitor medication dispensing, paramount for diabetes management. They give information on patient adherence to prescribed drugs and help monitor the effects of medications over time, which would assist doctors in adjusting treatment regimens if this is necessary for individual patients (Lessing & Hayman, 2019).
• Point of Care (POC) Systems: This enables the POC systems to collect real-time data at the site of care, which is needed for immediate clinical decision making in the management of diabetes for being able to regularly measure blood glucose while also adjusting treatment plans when and however it is needed in the delivery of immediate patient care.
• Results Management Systems: Such systems contain laboratory and other diagnostic reports essential for monitoring diabetes progression. They compile all data directly related to critical biomarkers impacting diabetes management: HbA1c, lipid profiles, and renal function. The doctor can administer an extensive lab test (panel) that will tackle and provide the most accurate answer for the patient (Markama et al., 2022; Roglic, 2016).

Additionally, integrating these systems allows an unimpeded flow of information from one care setting to the other, improving the continuum of care and providing a multidisciplinary approach to managing diabetes. These integrated systems will be instrumental in increasing accuracy in making diagnoses, developing treatment programs and enhancing the health status of patients with diabetes.

Information Life Cycle

Collection to Destruction

• Collection: Automated systems will automatically pull and record data directly from EHRs to minimize errors and ensure timeliness.
• Storage: The information would be kept within encrypted databases protected by data access rights granted to only authorized employees.
• Access Control: Using secured login systems and defining users’ roles will help us control patient information access.
• Interoperability: To guarantee health information exchange in an organized manner where all the healthcare platforms are included, HL7 interoperability standards should be followed.
• Destruction: Data will be destroyed responsibly, adhering to legal requirements and best practices after the expired regulatory retention period (Urban et al., 2020).

Integration and Challenges

We plan to incorporate our data with Health Information Exchanges (HIE), which will enhance data accessibility and boost collaboration in various healthcare centers. On the one hand, this digitalization process brings about integration risk. Still, it is also worth noting the risk of data breaches, which is a paramount concern in our tech-driven era. The standardization of health information remains a prominent issue because of the diverse data formats and the multisource nature of health data collection. While integrating data standards will be imperative to overcome inefficiencies and allow for smooth data interaction and precise analytics, care and extra precautions will be required (Lessing & Hayman, 2019).

Addressing these integration challenges requires robust encryption, secure data transmission channels, and tight access controls. These measures are the crucial components of building such a system to secure the privacy of sensitive patient information. On the other hand, the benefits of a connected healthcare ecosystem are achieved (Menachemi et al., 2018). Furthermore, we will endeavor to improve interoperability among the various health information technology systems to enable our electronic health record systems to interact seamlessly with HIE systems without compromising data integrity or security.

Legal Considerations

Confidentiality, Privacy, and Security

HIPAA regulation compliance makes up the foundation on which our proposal is built. To ensure we maintain the highest standards of data protection, we will:

• Introduce strong physical, administrative, and technical measures to secure confidential patient data within all systems.
• Conduct routine process audits to ensure continued compliance and resolve any identified weaknesses (Sorbie, 2020).

PHI Usage

The information technology of PHIs will be employed purely for care enhancement, with a guarantee of compliance with the legal and ethical limits. Through robust surveillance and innovative security tools, no cases of unauthorized entry or breaches will occur, thus maintaining the credibility and safety of our patients (Urban et al., 2020).

Legal Considerations

Further detailing the HIPAA implications, our proposal enhances data security measures by including:

• Risk Assessment: We will do risk assessments regularly to identify and eliminate any possible threats to our data storage processes. This is the most significant aspect of our strategies. This is glowing proof of our readiness to guarantee data security.
• Data Minimization: The fact that we will employ access only to the minimum PHI necessary for conducting such observations is one of the essential elements of our program. The principle of data minimization thereby minimizes the probability of data exposure and helps to preserve patient confidentiality.
• Breach Notification: A protocol for prompt reporting and notification in the event of a data breach is outlined so far as it meets the requirements of the HIPAA. Firstly, immediate mitigation strategies and open communication with the affected people should be implemented, as this will help ensure trust and compliance with legal standards (Markama et al., 2022).

By incorporating these practices into our everyday activities, we will be able to keep the most advanced standard of legal compliance, protect patients’ sensitive data information, and maintain their trust in our health care services.

Conclusion

This report presents a systematic plan focusing on the accurate logging review and efficient information management to improve diabetes patient care. Our practice aims to achieve the best treatment outcomes through data management and security methods while keeping up national healthcare standards.

References

Lessing, S. E., & Hayman, L. L. (2019). Diabetes care and management using electronic medical records: a systematic review. Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology, 13(4), 774-782.

Markama, H., Tamzila, F., & Wihartob, M. (2022, June). End-User Need Assessment for Developing Electronic Integrated Antenatal Care (e-iANC). In MEDINFO 2021: One World, One Health—Global Partnership for Digital Innovation: Proceedings of the 18th World Congress on Medical and Health Informatics (Vol. 290, p. 178). IOS Press.

Menachemi, N., Rahurkar, S., Harle, C. A., & Vest, J. R. (2018). The benefits of health information exchange: an updated systematic review. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 25(9), 1259-1265.

Roglic, G. (2016). WHO Global report on diabetes: A summary. International Journal of Noncommunicable Diseases, 1(1), 3-8.

Sorbie, A. (2020). Sharing confidential health data for research purposes in the UK: where are ‘publics’ in the public interest?. Evidence & Policy, 16(2), 249-265.

Urban, M., Cuzick, A., Seager, J., Wood, V., Rutherford, K., Venkatesh, S. Y., … & Hammond-Kosack, K. E. (2020). PHI-base: the pathogen–host interactions database. Nucleic acids research, 48(D1), D613-D620.