A recent article by Xtelligent Healthcare emphasizes the significant role of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) in clinical informatics.
Facilitating the secure exchange of healthcare information through EHRs is critical to the successful application of clinical informatics across various use cases. With security frameworks like DirectTrust, healthcare providers can securely exchange health information with other care team members, patients, and external organizations.
Today, we’re discussing the importance of Direct Secure Messaging (DSM) in Health Information Exchange (HIE) and the various use cases clinical informatics can support.
What is Clinical Informatics?
Clinical informatics is the study of information technology and its application within the healthcare field. Involving the study and practice of an information-based approach to healthcare delivery, clinical informatics aims to improve patient care and health outcomes by leveraging resources like EHR technology.
For clinical informatics to be effective, data must be structured so that practitioners or providers can easily retrieve information and use it for reports or evaluations. With the integration of technology and healthcare, this process has become far more streamlined.
What Role Does the EHR Play in Clinical Informatics?
EHR data plays a pivotal role in clinical informatics by aiding research in clinical trial recruitment, public health surveillance, and healthcare IT analytics. Serving as centralized repositories for healthcare data, EHR systems provide significant value to the field by integrating data across systems and platforms.
Use Cases for EHR Data in Clinical Informatics
Population Health Research
EHR data provides an alternative to manual data collection, which is often time-consuming and limited to a specific group. It acts as a real-time source of information for researchers, eliminating the need for extensive surveys.
Health Data Analytics
Learning healthcare systems integrate internal data with external evidence to optimize care delivery. EHRs facilitate this within individual institutions by aggregating data from multiple sources to provide more clinical data value. Several EHR vendors offer de-identified data for clinical research, allowing researchers and clinicians to query and interact with this data effectively.
Clinical Trial Recruitment
According to research, 86% of clinical trials fall behind planned recruitment schedules, and 40% fail to meet their goals. Various traditional recruitment strategies include mailings, social media, newspapers, and radio advertisements. EHRs simplify this process by enabling researchers to identify and contact specific groups of individuals based on study inclusion and exclusion criteria.
DirectTrust & The Secure Exchange of Healthcare Data
DirectTrust is a non-profit, vendor-neutral alliance that supports secure health information exchange. It focuses on interoperability, affordability, usability, and ubiquity for end users. The organization develops and maintains policies, standards, and practices that support the effective use of direct messaging within the DirectTrust Network.
Its framework includes the Public Key Infrastructure, enabling the management of digital certificates and key encryptions needed for secure message exchange. This security framework has been instrumental in advancing data exchange within healthcare, providing a safe and efficient means for stakeholders to communicate.
DirectTrust and clinical informatics work together to facilitate secure and efficient healthcare data exchange successfully.
Lane is a Member of DirectTrust as a Secure Fax Provider
Lane stands at the forefront of enhancing industry standards through its DirectTrust membership. By influencing decision-making through such an influential platform; Lane reinforces its dedication to driving positive change in healthcare communication technologies. Our direct secure messaging fax technology ensures the secure exchange of vital healthcare data that can be used to support clinical informatics and facilitate efficient healthcare delivery.
Lane’s relationship with DirectTrust attests to our ongoing commitment to security, interoperability, and operational efficiency in healthcare.
Learn More About Lane & Secure Health Information Exchange
At Lane, we are dedicated to advancing secure health information exchange. Our involvement with DirectTrust is just one example of our commitment to the healthcare industry. To learn more about how we can help you enhance your healthcare communication technologies, visit our website and contact us today.
