Theory Based Design and Assessment

Question: Discuss about the Theory Based Design and Assessment. Answer: Introduction My Health Record is an initiative by the Commonwealth Government of Australia to provide the individuals with an integrated online platform to record, view, modify and handle their health information. It would lead to the improvement of patient care by allowing the patients to consult their healthcare professional through the aid of the system. The document is a vision document for the project that highlights the problems, capabilities and benefits associated with My Health Record. Healthcare industry is a huge industry that is growing and expanding at a rapid rate with the increase in population and emergence of newer health issues. The current health care system is associated with a number of problems in terms of services and operations. Due to huge population, there are service issues such as long queues, long waiting time, difficulty in getting admissions in the hospitals and delayed care. Also, the cost of health care services is on an all time high and is expected to increase further. It is essential to have virtual health care systems to provide patient care to the individuals due to the problems that are associated with the current system. This system will require an interface and a network to run which may bring up the issues associated with information security and privacy (Zahedi, 2016). Capabilities My Health Record is one virtual system that aims to provide individuals with remote health care and health monitoring. It would be capable of providing a secure platform to the authorized patients to manage their health information and seek medical assistance as well. It would allow the individuals to log in to the system and record their health details. These health details will be visible to the assigned healthcare professional that would be able to study and provide the medical assistance through the system. The patient will be able to view and download the medical reports and feedback provided by the medical expert. These medical reports will be available in a number of different formats to choose from such as word document, excel file, PDF and likewise (Hagglund, Scandurra, Mostrom, Koch, 2007). In case of emergency or urgent care, the medical experts will be notified to provide immediate assistance and advice to the patient. There will also be alerts and prompts that will be generated for the patients to record their health information in due time. The system will also allow the patients to view their medical history on the basis of the dates that are selected which will aid them in accurately monitoring their health. Health information of an individual is private and confidential in nature and any security breach to the same may result in significant damage. Therefore, My Health Record will have the in-built security mechanisms to make sure that the health information is accessed only by the authorized individuals and any of the security attacks attempted by the malicious entities are not successful (Suomi, 2014). Benefits There are a number of benefits that are associated with My Health Record for the patients as well as the healthcare professionals. The first and the foremost benefit that will be provided to the patients include the recording and monitoring of their health in a virtual manner. The system would enable the patients to avoid the need to physically visit the medical centre or hospital and would grant them an opportunity to perform the healthcare related activities sitting at home or from any other location. Also, there would be a one-time cost associated with the purchase and subscription of the system. The cost associated with the system would be much lesser than the cost of visiting the medical centre/hospital and consulting the healthcare professional. The system will allow the patients to be aware on their health status and will also prompt them to take due actions. There will also be a number of benefits that will be provided to the health care professionals. It would allow them to provide medical assistance from any location and would also allow them to assist higher number of patients on a daily basis. It will also provide them with the opportunity to improve the condition of healthcare in the region (Johnson, Vorderstrasse, Shaw, 2009). There are also issues associated with storage and management of health information that are associated with manual systems. The same will be overcome in this case as My Health Record will allow the storage of health information over the cloud and there would be proper back-up and disaster recovery measures that will be applied in order to keep the information protected at all times. Issues such as data duplication, data loss, data replication and likewise will also be avoided with this system. It would also allow the medical experts to carry out data analysis to understand the health trends and condition associated with a particular group or region. References Hagglund, M., Scandurra, I., Mostrom, D., Koch, S. (2007). Bridging the gap: a virtual health record for integrated home care. Retrieved 22 March 2017, from https://www.ijic.org/articles/10.5334/ijic.191/ Johnson, C., Vorderstrasse, A., Shaw, R. (2009). Virtual Worlds in Health Care Higher Education. Journals.tdl.org. Retrieved 22 March 2017, from https://journals.tdl.org/jvwr/index.php/jvwr/article/view/699 Suomi, R. (2014). Promoting Health in Virtual Worlds: Lessons From Second Life. Retrieved from https://www.jmir.org/2014/10/e229 Zahedi, F. (2016). Augmented Virtual Doctor Office: Theory-based Design and Assessment: Journal of Management Information Systems: Vol 33, No 3. Tandfonline.com. Retrieved 22 March 2017, from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07421222.2016.1243952