Advancement in information technology has come with many benefits to institutions, especially health based institutions. Good management of information and data in hospital leads to efficiency in patient management and effective service delivery. Most of the activities that take place in hospital setting involve a lot of handling of information. Several departments of the hospital exchange information about the patients in order to provide services. Bad handling of patient information can lead to errors in treating the patient. The Aga-Khan University hospital is a premier health institution that has demonstrated application of advanced technology in the use and management of data and technology. This paper aims at analyzing the areas that use data and knowledge at the Aga-Khan University Hospital. The paper will also look at how the institution can improve its knowledge management system.

The Aga-Khan University Hospital is endowed with many department that use data. Several units of the hospital and subunits are also data and knowledge consumers. Being a health institution, the use of data and knowledge is in high demand in the hospital. The fact also that the hospital is a research oriented institution, makes it producer and consumer of high volumes of data. This means that the hospital is in great demand of data storage and management system. Clinical operations, admissions and discharge, as well as, radiology and theatre departments use and generate data and knowledge.

The use and recording of data at the Aga-Khan hospital starts at the casualty departments as the patient report. The hospital administration emphasizes the proper and accurate of recording of patient’s demographic information as the patients report at the casualty. Most of the patients at the casualty departments are usually I a critical condition. For this reason, data is extracted from the people who accompany the patient. The files are opened for the patients and the details about the patient recorded admitting team. Upon completion, the patient is directed to the next level. Most of the patients who are acutely injured are admitted at the acute room. This is another unit of the hospital which largely depends on the use of data. They usually check the notes from the previous unit in order to deliver the best care to the patient. A nurse at the acute room reported that they mostly deal with emergency cases. For this reason, they rely on some of the information, like vital signs, recorded by the previous team. Errors by the previous team can lead to mistreatment and mishandling of the patient. To avoid such errors, the casualty department came up with electronic data management system. The system is an online database that allows different departments of the hospital to share patient information. In cases of a query, the nurse can check from the data base that was entered by the previous team.

Most of the casualties also undergo scanning at the x-ray department. For the patient to receive services, they have to provide evidence of payments from the finance departments. The patient’s file reflects a receipt and a receipt number. The imaging tem verifies from the electronic management data base that the patient has paid. To access the particular patient’s information without delays, every patient is assigned a number. The number is used by the personnel to check details of the specific patient. This also helps eliminate errors where patients have the same names.

The information about a patient’s imaging like CT-scans and x-rays is used in various areas in the hospital. First, the examining physician will use the information results provided by the x-ray departments to make diagnoses of the patient. Secondly, when the patient is admitted in the ward, the information that was recorded from day one at the admitting table will be used to improve care. Thirdly, reviews that are done to check the improvement of the patient rely on the x-rays that were taken previously.

The ward is another area of consumption of knowledge and data. Various categories of hospital staff utilize data and knowledge at the wards in Aga-Khan Hospital. First, the nurses use the information in the patients file and the nursing cardices to plan patient’s care. The nurses also use the data in the treatment sheets when giving medications to the patient. Secondly, the doctors use these sets of information while in doctor’s rounds. The university hospital medical students also use the patient’s information in the file in their grand-rounds. Thirdly, the hospital management uses the information to assess the delivery of care by the various personnel involved in patient care. The nutritionists, counsellors and social workers too use the information.In addition, the internal and external auditors use the information while auditing the hospital.

The pharmacy department in the hospital is also a consumer of knowledge and data. They utilize knowledge about medications and drugs. They use the prescriptions made by the doctors to give medications to the patients. They also utilize information on research results about medications in order to advise the hospital management on the best medications to buy. The department also utilizes information regarding drugs ordered by the other departments.

The patient support Centre, counselling and the social work departments are consumers of data and knowledge. They utilize knowledge concerning the welfare of the patient. The hospital’s social workers utilize knowledge about the social background of the patient for them to recommend a waiver.

The patients’ records department of the hospital is a major area of utilization of knowledge and data. Its major role is the management of patient information, and hospital information. The other hospital departments consult this department in cases of errors about patient information. The department is endowed with supercomputers and wireless internet connection for easier management of the hospital’s information management software.

The hospital also has a research department that utilizes data on research. Information about research is handled in this department. It is connected to the Hospital library for ease of accessibility to sources. In addition, the hospital runs an online library to enable their staff and students to assess data from any part of the world.

A major fault with the health information management system available at the Aga-Khan Hospital is lack of ease of accessibility. This is contributed by the failure on the part of the management to divide their information system into the core units of the institution to avoid overlaps and confusion while assessing data. The proposal to the hospital is to adopt a system that will allow divisions for ease of accessibility. This system should be divided into three main modules which are further divided into units. The three modules are: the core modules, enterprise supporting modules and the enterprise enabling modules. The core module has subunits like the one for doctors, nurses, pharmacy, laboratory, theatre management, ward, patient administration and radiology. The supporting module units include blood bank, physiotherapy, dialysis, housekeeping, billing, and the bio-medical unit. The enabling module will include the finance, fixed assets and the human resources department (Sap Net Solutions, 2006).

Another way of improving data at the Aga-Khan Hospital is by updating the staff members on new technology and about the introduction of new software in the hospital. Husk and Waxman (2004) observes that most hospitals in the world overs are experiencing problems in health information management because of making assumptions that the staff will automatically know how use them. It was noted that some staff members are not conversant with the use of the software in information management.

In conclusion, the Aga-Khan University Hospital is a data consumer institution. The various departments of the hospital rely on data utilization to deliver services. The core business of the hospital, which is patient management, requires data utilization. However, the hospital needs to improve data management through adoption of a system that will allow division of data into the different units of the hospital

References

Husk, G., & Waxman, A.D. 2004. Using data from hospital information systems to improve emergency department care.Academic Emergency Medicine, Vol 11, no. 11: pp 1237-1244

Quintegra solutions. 2006. Hospital management and information system. Quintegra Solutions. Retrieved online from http://www.quintegrasolutions.com

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