Complexity of Information Systems

If a hospital information system in one facility is a complex process by itself, how much more complex will a national health information system be? How can government manage this complexity?

sys·tem

ˈsistəm/

noun

1.    a set of connected things or parts forming a complex whole, in particular.

2.    a set of principles or procedures according to which something is done; an organized scheme or method.

An Information system is indeed complex, like the hospital information system – it is most likely composed of different systems itself. A hospital information system may be composed of an administrative information system and clinical information system, both consist of systems. The clinical information system may have a pharmacy information system, electronic medical record that may be an electronic health record that can go through different departments of the hospital. A hospital information system is really complex system of interrelated systems.

According to Philippine eHealth Strategic Framework and Plan speech of USec. Ted Herbosa, Information technology has become affordable and pervasive.  Yet, despite this, IT has not been effectively used in the health sector.  There will be tremendous benefits if key healthcare processes can be computerized.

Computerizing the processes like health data gathering cannot only lifting the burden of pen and paper work of the health workers during their daily services, but their most dreaded reports generation. Having an electronic medical record with the capability of generating reports can be really beneficial for the health workers, giving them more time to cater more health services than manually doing reports that they submit regularly.  That does not only end on generation of reports, but the submission of reports can be really tacky depending on which part of the country are you. Some health workers need to travel by land or sea just to submit a report because of the poor IT infrastructure in some areas in the country.

According to the WHO’s eHealth Strategy Toolkit It all starts with a vision. Vision is a mental image of the future.  On planning, the organization must have a clear vision of what they want, not only on what would be multi stakeholders’ best interest of the governing bodies but multi stakeholders, following the framework in the toolkit. (Figure 3)

Setting the context would be first step, according to the The Philippine eHealth Strategic Framework and Plan: the Story of its Evolution, the rationale “effective use of information technology in healthcare”. On the vision, the desired outcome must be set and lastly setting the foundations for change.

The next step would be developing a National eHealth Action Plan, hence the “Philippine eHealth Strategic Framework and Plan 2014 to 2020.

And lastly Monitoring and evaluation.

According to the toolkit, monitoring and evaluation is his is a sequential process that begins with determining the indicators to be monitored and outcomes to be evaluated. Baseline and target measures are set for each indicator. Targets serve as the basis for tracking actual progress against planned progress, and determining whether corrective action is required.

Anything done in haste is waste. With the national information system slowly taking its place, comparing it to an hospital information system, it would be more complex.  However, amat victoria curam, victory loves preparation.  There’s no better way to prepare in implementing a very complex solution than preparation.