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Chapter 18
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-0920-2.ch018
ABSTRACT
Information systems (IS) help in managing healthcare costs and in improving the quality of care. IS are
uniquely positioned to capture, store, process, and communicate timely information to decision makers for
better coordination of healthcare at both the individual and population levels. One of the most interesting
aspects of HIS (Health Information System) is how to manage the relationship between healthcare provid-
ers and patients. The main focus of this Chapter is a brief overview of Health Information Systems and
the description of the techniques that can be used to develop the health information systems. There are
various emerging tools and technologies in creating and managing HIS like data mining and geographi-
cal information system. Developing HIS can improve access for geographically isolated communities;
provide support for health care workers; aid in data sharing; provide visual tools linking population
and environmental information with disease outbreaks.
The main objectives of this chapter are to present:
1. Concepts of health information system,
2. Tools and techniques used to develop the health information system,
3. Future research directions in this field.
INTRODUCTION
Healthcare is an information intensive industry (Rodrigues, 2010), where reliable and timely information
is a critical resource for the planning and monitoring of health care services at organizational, regional,
national and international levels.
The nature of healthcare industry has changed over time, from a relatively stable industry to a dy-
namic one. A Health Information System (HIS) is the combination of healthcare’s business process and
information systems to deliver better healthcare services.
Health Information System
Aman Tyagi
Dayalbagh Educational Institute, India
Preetvanti Singh
Dayalbagh Educational Institute, India