Required Discussion
HCI/500
November 16, 2015

Required Discussion
Create a list of five health information technology (HIT) roles and provide a brief description of each. How do their responsibilities differ from each other?
1. Informatics nurse specialist. Because not all health care disciplines and those working under such disciplines have the necessary aptitude required with the constantly evolving technical aspect of the health care industry, the role of clinical informatics critical to assist others in health care disciplines adequately understand and utilize the complexities of various databases and interfacing software programs being developed and launched to better help manage data as health related data is collected and recorded. "For this reason, the informatics nurse specialist (INS) plays a central role in assessing clinical applications, bringing crucial clinical, informatics, and technical knowledge to bear on the process. The conceptual basis of nursing informatics joins nursing science, computer science, and information science to improve nursing practice by communicating and managing data, information, knowledge, and wisdom" (Rojas, 2014, p. 215). With valuable information regarding practices and work flows from a nursing standpoint, the informatics nurse specialist in many regards acts as a liaison between users of data and software programs and those responsible for the design, development, and maintenance of such programs to communicate areas needing improvement to provide a more effective technological work space for health care workers as well as provide a working knowledge base and assistance to health care workers to utilize technology as intended and in more effective manners.
2. Chief Technology Officer. A Chief Technology Officer (CTO) is a very important role in health information technology (HIT). According to Smith (2002), the CTO is responsible for the following: “monitoring new technologies and assessing their potential to become new products or services, overseeing the selection of research projects to insure that they have the potential to add value to the company, and providing reliable technical assessments of potential mergers and acquisitions” (1). It is also the role of the CTP to provide explanation of what the company products are as well as the plans for the future to the trade media. They are partake governmental groups, academic groups and industry groups in effort to promote the reputation of organization while also obtaining very vital information (Smith, 2002).
3. Data mining analyst. Data mining analyst are IT professionals who mine or extract and examines raw data from a data warehouse using a special technique, patterns, and models to transform them into meaningful information and that can provide an insight and knowledge that can be used for business decision. It requires statistical knowledge, predictive analytics and automated system to assist with knowledge discovery in databases (Ross, Wei, & Onho-Machado, 2014).
4. Registered Health Information Technician (or RHIT). RHIT is an important role because it ensures patient record accuracy, organization, quality, security and accessibility. These professionals are also referred to as medical record technicians. Specifically, they manage medical records that contain a patient’s diagnosis, treatment, health certificate and insurance. RHITs use medical coding to categorize all patient data. This information is used for reimbursements and keeping the patient’s medical treatment history. Every hospital, nursing home and health clinic have one or more of these professionals on staff. This is because they make doctors’ and other health care providers’ work a lot easier by providing them up-to-date patient information to deliver high quality care.
5. Information Management Redesign Specialist. Workers in this role assist in reorganizing the work of providers to optimize the features of health IT that are designed to improve health care. Individuals in this role may have backgrounds in health care (for example, as a practice administrator) or in information technology, but are not licensed clinical professionals.
References
1. Rojas, C. L. (2014, May). The informatics nurse specialist role in electronic health record usability evaluation. Computers, informatics, nursing, 32(5), 214-220. doi:10.1097/CIN.0000000000000042
2. Smith, R., D. (2002). The Role of the Chief Technology Officer in Strategic Innovation, Project Execution, and Mentoring. Retrieved from https://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/spring12/cos448/web/readings/smith.pdf
3. Ross, M. K., Wei, W., & Onho-Machado, L. (2014). “Big Data” and the Electronic Health Record. Journal of the Year book Of Medical Informatics, Vol. 9 Issue 1 p. 97–104 Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4287068/.
4. Health Information Technology. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.healthinformationtechnologysalaryhq.com/
5. Department of Health and Human Services. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.hrsa.gov/healthit/workforce/oncroles.html