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Health Information Technology (HIT) refers to the application of information technology solutions and services in the healthcare sector.  HIT system consists of computer hardware, software and peripherals for the collection, storage, archiving, retrieval and transfer of healthcare data and information between healthcare providers, consumers and other beneficiaries.  It helps in effective patient care and more accurate and timely decision making by presenting the right information at the right time to the right people . The use of IT in healthcare helps healthcare providers to face challenges effectively; HIT provides enhanced care to patients improves healthcare quality while ensuring confirmance to present and upcoming standards. Healthcare IT plays crucial role in the global healthcare scenario since timely, accurate and reliable HIT could make the difference between life and death.  HIT also ensures seamless integration within the various medical specialities and departments of the hospital.  HIT systems are capable of managing all the patient information from patient registration to discharge and covers all the hospital transactions related to the patients. This includes applications like telemedicine and use of the Internet. The following are the various data sources for HIT ,

* Electronic Health Records ( EHR) or Electronic Medical Records ( EMR)
* Hospital Information System (HIS)
* Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE)
* Laboratary Information System
* computerized decision support systems,
* bar-coding for medication administration
* E-Prescribing

Advantages of HIT

* Better healthcare services offered to patients.
* Reduced errors related to drug prescriptions.
* Cost saving advantage in the long run
* Electronic patient records eliminates manual entry errors of patient information.
* Enhanced administrative workflow
* Improved clinical, operational and financial outcomes to healthcare providers
* Reduced paper works
* No fear of loosing medical reports as HIT enables back-up and recovery support

HIT and EHR

Electronic Health Record refers to a patient' s medical file which contains detailed medical information and patient records, which is stored in a digitalized or electronic format and maintained by a healthcare provider. EHR forms a fundamental component of Health Information IT. EHR is a useful tool for healthcare providers with which  patient records can be created, viewed, transferred, stored and retrieved  EHRs posses the ability to share medical information among different interested parties. It also helps to track communications and access patient specific information easily.  An EHR may be made up of electronic medical records (EMRs) such as film (X-rays), paper (notes), or photographs, from many locations or different sources. The EHR provides direct access to an array of healthcare infrastructure by connecting with external services (pharmacies, labs, and imaging centers). Today various governments and regulatory authorities worldwide started investing more and more in Healthcare IT in order to improve the quality of patient care and increase efficiency. Some of the reason for the growing demand are the cost and space savings, reduced human efforts, easy accessibility, error free notes, multiple users, e-prescriptions, back-up and disaster recovery, better patient services etc...
Recently, The United States  President, Barack Obama as a part of health IT stimulus package, had set the goal of fully digitalized health records by 2014.  The new law may dramatically increase EMR adoption and flourish healthcare IT market in US. EMR implementations are expected to save more than $81 billion yearly through acquiring more efficiency in healthcare and also in safety related aspects. additionally, these savings could be doubled gradually through the prevention and management of chronic diseases with the help of Healthcare Information Technology services. But still, it is hard to realize all these without appropriate changes to the whole health care system.