As Baby Boomers have aged into seniors, the cost of healthcare increased to $4.1 trillion by 2020 — about 20% of the gross domestic product — from $27.2 billion, about 5% of GDP.
The per capita cost in the early 1960s, as the first Boomers were entering their teens, stood at about $150. By 2020, as they were entering their retirement years, it had exploded to $12,350, with about 30% wasted due to inefficiencies in overtreatment, poor pricing controls, inefficient management and administration and fraud, according to industry research.
The industry is now looking to management information systems (MIS) to help balance its competing priorities of controlling costs while delivering high-quality services to a population that continues to age and develop chronic illnesses. As a result, it is placing a premium on tech-savvy business professionals with expertise in IT-enabled health care.
“Once a laggard in IT adoption, the healthcare industry now universally embraces digital transformation,” according to CIO, noting that the demand for IT professionals — especially those with experience in the healthcare industry — far outpaces supply.
How Does the Healthcare Industry Use MIS?
Management information systems provide business leaders with the tools to organize, evaluate and efficiently manage departments within an organization, including collecting, storing, processing and analyzing data to inform decision-making and strategic planning.
In the healthcare sector, digitization boomed when patients could not safely go to doctors’ offices and clinics during peak outbreaks of COVID-19. Therefore, telemedicine remains the strategy of choice to reduce infection risk and increase care access. Its effectiveness and safety rely largely on how well providers use MIS to manage increasingly large and complex data sets generated at the clinical and research levels.
MIS platforms in healthcare settings and their benefits include the following:
- Patient safety improves as providers use data to prevent diagnosing and treatment errors that lead to adverse outcomes, responding to them more rapidly and tracking them in real time.
- Electronic healthcare records enable providers to share accurate, up-to-date data with clinicians to improve diagnoses, coordinate safer care to ensure optimal outcomes, reduce errors and improve operational efficiency.
- Clinical support decision systems help physicians make better decisions about patient care faster with higher degrees of certainty, reduce misdiagnoses and risk of prescribing errors, and gain efficiencies to reduce costs.
- Population health management can reduce total healthcare costs through preventive strategies targeting high-risk populations, equipping patients with knowledge and resources to manage chronic conditions, and reducing patient reliance on hospital emergency rooms for acute care.
- Supply chain management weaknesses were highlighted by the COVID-19 lockdowns — particularly in the procurement of personal protective equipment — which has forced the industry to view the supply chain as “less transactional and more strategic; we recognize just how essential it is to the day-to-day functioning of the health system.”
Overall, the healthcare industry uses MIS to improve patient care and operational efficiency and attempt to control costs, predicted to increase by an average of 5.1% annually through 2030, reaching a total of $6.8 trillion.
How Do Business Professionals Acquire Expertise in Healthcare Information Systems?
A Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Management Information Systems, such as that offered online by Lamar University, equips graduates with advanced management expertise and innovative technological and computer skills to solve organizational challenges.
The program’s accredited curriculum includes studies in healthcare information systems that investigate emerging trends in IT-enabled healthcare, the role of analytics in clinical decision-making and the effectiveness of various healthcare information systems.
By developing the expertise and insights needed to understand the strengths and weaknesses within systems, define solutions and develop, integrate and manage healthcare information systems, the program equips graduates with advantages in the competition for careers in high-demand roles.
Learn more about Lamar University’s MBA in Management Information Systems online program.
