Health informatics corresponds to the application of informatics and communication sciences in the health area. Through the use of software, it seeks to improve the quality of patient care Revenue Cycle Management Outsourcing .
It is in the 1960s that the idea of introducing information technology in the health field began to be evaluated. In the beginning, those professionals who started in this new discipline did so out of their own interest. They shared a taste for both disciplines: medicine and computer science, as well as a curiosity for the new technologies that were advancing in the world.
But it has been with the passing of the years that this need begins to become relevant due to the fragmentation of patient information, the illegibility of the records by the different actors - which on many occasions generated errors in patient care, even producing unnecessary prescriptions for studies, and fundamentally due to the large amount of data generated in the health-disease process of the patients who are assisted in the different services.
These data, if correctly interpreted, are a very important source of information on how health care is performed, allowing more statistics to be obtained that will allow knowing not only the health status of an individual, but also of the general population, generating thus more and better health policies.
This process of computerization of the records generated the need for the creation of a profile that is capable of understanding workflows, as well as the processes of medicine.
The contribution of the role
The health informatics specialist must have the ability to interpret the operation of health services with the knowledge they have of them, added to the knowledge acquired during their training and practice as a health professional, in order to later be able to transmit them to IT professionals so that they can carry out the construction of computer systems that are adapted to the reality of the different services.
It is for this reason that the inclusion of the Health Informatics Technician as a Functional Analyst in a clinical software project is of utmost importance to perform different tasks within the project, which will be useful for the development team, and as support for the Managers of Projects, in the understanding and prioritization of the needs of the interested parties (stakeholders).
These Functional Analysts have the ability to correctly interpret the complex technical language that is commonly used in the health field, generating a nexus between the parties. They are also capable of clearly identifying the needs that stakeholders may have, or even anticipating their identification.
Being able to include this new role, favors that the Analyst does not have to deepen knowledge in the area in which he will be working, because many knowledge of the processes that are executed are already known. This results in greater efficiency in the project, since the health professional has previous knowledge and makes it productive from the beginning.
Participation in different activities of the process: obtaining needs and designing the solution.
The Analyst will collect the information expressed by the interested party, to carry out the preparation of the necessary documentation to facilitate the interested parties' understanding of the system to be developed.
In the first place, the Business Analyst must survey and document the different workflows that the institution presents in order to know precisely how it works.
In the subsequent stage, the functionalities that the system must contain will begin to be surveyed, thus complying with the needs of the stakeholders and with the work flow. During this stage the Analyst is designing Mockups (screen modeling), to clarify with the user the main dialogues that the system is going to present. Here are some examples.
Once the complete process is in place, as well as the functionalities defined and in parallel with the realization of the document, functional validations are carried out, but not with the text of the document prepared or in the preparation stage, but with a prototype of low fidelity.
In this way, it will be much easier for stakeholders to understand, see how the system would behave and be able to validate the aspects that are well defined, or detect those that were not clear or a wrong definition was assumed.
Now the development team can begin to carry out the corresponding developments knowing how the system should behave, and for its final validation if the finalized requirements document is delivered to the client according to the previous validations.
Functional test
Another important aspect to take into account of this professional is his ability to perform functional tests, which allows the early identification of errors or misinterpretations that can lead to the malfunction of the system, or the failure of future implementations.
But the most important thing about this functional test is that we can do it in the early stages, even being able to identify bugs when making the prototype, because we can see the behavior of the system and confirm with the interested party that supposed bug when performing a validation.
Benefits
Their presence in the teams contributes to the system development process, improving the quality of communication between the parties, interpreting in a timely manner the needs of the stakeholders and the institution.
These professionals have the ability to stand on the side of the developers trying to be as clear as possible in the development of a requirement, and on the side of the user since they can think of the requirements in the way that they themselves would use them.
The participation of the Functional Analyst can reduce development costs within the project, because it is possible to validate with a low fidelity prototype until obtaining the necessary validations and then advance in the development, knowing exactly what the client wants.