Keywords:
Information Technology, Computer applications, eHealth, Radiographers, PACS, RIS, Decision analysis, Health policy and practice, Workforce, Not applicable, Performed at one institution
Authors:
J. Miranda1, A. Queirós2, M. Santos2; 1V.N.Gaia/PT, 2Aveiro/PT
DOI:
10.26044/ecr2020/C-14421
Purpose
Health Information Systems have contributed to continuous improvement in health care, becoming a quality assurance by enabling decision-making based on appropriate and reliable information [1].
The existence of multiple Information Systems (IS) in a hospital center leads to a greater dispersion of data and difficult its processing and analysis and consequently the practice based on evidence [2]. In addition, different health professionals contribute to the acquisition, recording and transmission of relevant data to a quality professional practice in imaging department, so the information must be correctly recorded in order to be validated and transmitted as reliably as possible [3-6].
There is also the need of a continuous educational initiatives on bioinformatics so health professionals have the skills and knowledge to exploit the full capabilities of the IS [7].
To improve the use of Medical Imaging IS is necessary to identify what data is missing and, of those, data that already exist in other health IS, and, on the other hand, the data that do not exist in any IS [8].
Thus, it seems clear that quality professional practice depends on quality communication between the patient and the prescribing physician and between the prescribing physician and medical imaging professionals. This communication difficulty is promoted by the information fragmentation into multiple IS and databases that can sometimes be slow and difficult to use [9-10]. For example, when information is weak or nonexistent, the quality of the imaging procedure or medical report may be decreased [3]. These difficulties are often overcome by exchanging information verbally and in an informal way. The work performed aimed to identify the information needs felt by radiographers and radiologists in a major Portuguese hospital center, namely data not yet available in the information system used in the radiology department and relevant to radiographers and radiologists in their daily practice.