The chief information officer (CIO) is in charge of the information technology (IT) department and bridges the gap between the medical part of the health care and the IT department. Recently the chief information officers are on high demand due to the technology used in the healthcare industry. The most important responsibilities of a CIO include;
• Working with the senior management in coming up with a strategic plan on the IT department.
• Designing and integrating the IT department.
• Designing the electronic health record (EHR) software and application to ensure high effectiveness in retrieving the patients records.
• Ensuring that the physicians and other medical officers are trained on the IT system and applications especially in the electronic health record (EHR) commonly relied upon in the medical department.
The Chief information officer needs to have some unique characteristics that should include;
• Being very creative to enable him/ her in the effective designing and planning of the IT part.
• Good management capabilities since he/she is in charge of the whole department.
• Have and manage effective budgeting skills to enable him/her in choosing the most efficient technology in the healthcare sector.
• Choosing the most beneficial technology by using the cost-benefit method.
The Chief Technology Officer (CTO) oversees new technology and make policies on the use of the new technology. The chief technology officer is the right hand man of the of the chief information officer. They both need to work together for the good of the health sector. The key responsibilities of a Chief Technology Officer differ with those of a Chief information officer. The following are the responsibilities of the chief technology officer;
• Should design and recommend the best technology to be
• Should monitor technological trends and any social trend that could affect the health sector they are involved in.
• Should be very keen to avoid use of obsolete technology.
• Should communicate the organization’s technological strategy to the senior management and all the stakeholders.
• Should maintain current information on the available technology and protect the organizations data and the servers to ensure that confidentiality is highly observed.
• Should ensure that the organization comply effectively with any technological standards to avoid any legal suit in the future.
The chief technology officer should have the following characteristics to enable him/her to work efficiently.
• Should have strong technological background for him/her to be familiar with technological trends.
Should have good communication skills for him/her to communicate effectively to all stakeholders.
Both need to utilize their expertise in coming up with software used in the electronic health record thereby reducing the work for the employees using the records thus improving their productivity while the patients are served faster making them satisfied.
Lab-on-a-chip is some technology which has been developed by Rutger Engineers. It is used in testing HIV and syphilis where it employs micro fluids technology making tests more affordable. since it uses 90% less sample fluids than needed in the conventional tests. It does not require expensive resources and can give the results in seconds.
The health care sector should really invest in the technology in order to reduce the cost of providing the services to the patients. For example the Lab-on-a-chip uses fewer liquids required in giving the results and also increases the speed at which the results are given. Due to the accuracy needed it is therefore recommended for the technology to be used.
The health sector should ensure encryption of data at rest for all portable devices which include the laptops and the tablets used in the health care facilities. This will protect all the information used by the facility thereby ensuring that there is no misuse of information.
The health care industry should use different methods to ensure that the data stored in their facility is stored away from any unauthorized personnel to ensure patients safety and privacy.
In training the service providers should come up with the most efficient strategy in training the employees. The most effective strategy that should be used is the simulation training that is most common in other fields. With the advancement in the technology simulation training best strategy that the health care sector should adopt since it provides the safest environment for training the service providers. Making mistakes is highly discouraged in the medical training thus by using simulation training the patient is not put at any risk as opposed to learning using real lives that are very valuable even in the society.
Having developed a high-level IT governance model does not imply that governance is actually working in the organization. Conceiving the IT governance model is the first step, implementing it into the organization is the next challenging step. IT governance can be deployed using a mixture of various structures, processes and relational mechanisms. IT governance structures include structural (formal) devices and mechanisms for connecting and enabling horizontal, or liaison, contacts between business and IT management (decision-making) function.
It is important to recognize that each of the applied processes, structures and relational mechanisms serve specific or multiple goals in the complex alignment challenge. However, dividing the IT governance framework into smaller pieces, and solve each problem separately, does not always solve the complete problem A holistic approach towards IT governance acknowledges its complex and dynamic nature, consisting of a set of interdependent subsystems (processes, structures and relational mechanisms) that deliver a powerful whole.
References
Saggiomo, v., & Velders, A. H. (2015). Removal Method for the Fabrication of Intricate Microfluid Devices.
Volpatti, L. R., & Yetisen, A. K. (2014). Commercialization of Microfluid Devices.
White, F. (2015). Foundation of universal Health systems.
