Information Governance Memorandum

Memorandum

DATE: 26th November 2018

TO: Jackson Memorial Hospital Board of Directors

FROM: Chief Information Officer Jackson Memorial Hospital

SUBJECT: MEMORANDUM ON THE ADOPTION OF INFORMATION GOVERNANCE IN THE HOSPITAL

As you know Jackson Memorial Hospital lacks any formal information governance (IG) program despite the numerous benefits associated with IG to the operations of various healthcare organizations.

Meaning of Information Governance

Information governance (IG) within the healthcare field refers to the policies, systems as well as relevant processes instigated and followed by medical insurance companies, healthcare practitioners as well as hospitals to gather, organize, exploit, and secure information. The domain of information governance is not only concerned with extracting value from hospital and patient data but also with minimizing the possible risks to it, ensuring that information managed or produced by the health organization is safeguarded by various levels of protection as obligated by the organizational policies, federal and state regulations and laws or the institutional compliance policies.

Key Benefits of Information Governance

For these reasons, it is fundamental to illustrate some of the benefits that are linked to the adoption of information governance by healthcare organizations. To begin with, information governance is regarded as one of the fastest-growing sectors within the healthcare industry. Even at its infancy stage, actionable information generated from the information governance policies has already revealed benefits in enhancing patient results, mitigating spikes in critical diseases within communities as well as in measuring the most appropriate alternatives for therapeutic plans for various illnesses. This governance system has moreover made strides in enhancing the hospital billing process as well as truncating patient statement mistakes and insurance claims, which would otherwise burden other resources to resolve.

It is also important to note that within the realm of healthcare, information governance is fundamental for the clinical administration of individual clients (patients) and the practical organization of hospital resources and services. For instance, information governance as a framework ensures that the patient data is readily accessible to the hospital employees with authorization to obtain it, adequately maintained, securely handled, and reasonably accomplished to foster the provision of high-quality healthcare services.

Besides, a grounding in information governance is critical in the current clinical setup. For instance, as electronic health records (EHR) approaches thrive, the quantity of patient information a typical clinical center gathers, stores, and shares enormously increases each day. As such, it is evident that hospitals are not immune to the data outburst, which means that for the healthcare organization to develop and flourish, they are required to handle their data in a similar manner that every other organization has. Information governance is a fundamental part of that remedy.

Lastly, there exists an extensive scope of benefits for all organizations that have implemented information governance programs, and these entail tangible cost savings from more appropriate information technology and data storage use when unnecessary data is deleted from the healthcare organization systems. In addition, information governance not only detects data that lack value to the healthcare organization but also the storage and systems media that are no longer needed for managing or processing that information.

Among the many benefits of information governance within the domain of healthcare further include:

Reduced costs
Enhanced organization of patient care
Efficient electronic medical record system
More precise patient data
Easier accessibility of patient data for decision-making

Information Governance’s Contribution to the Benefits

The adoption of IG standards, such as the principles of accountability, protection, integrity, and transparency, guarantees the healthcare organization's potential to reap the full benefits of information governance. The IG standards serve as the foundation upon which all the useful IG program is constructed and measured. The IG principles are based on realistic experiences, information theory as well as legal policy in healthcare and are informed by other healthcare organizational routines and doctrines from areas such as compliance, quality enhancement, risk management, patient safety, patient data management, security, and privacy. The IG standards are also based on various common yet indispensable values that are embedded in healthcare, and these include data accuracy, accessibility, timelines as well as integrity. These values act in the best interest of the healthcare information consumer, from researchers to public health officials, from patients to the community, and from information exchanges to policymakers. Therefore, healthcare providers and healthcare organizations that have adopted the IG program must ensure compliance with the IG principles to realize the full benefits of information governance.

For the reasons revealed above, I recommend that Jackson Memorial Hospital adopt and implement the information governance as it could lead to certain benefits such as the enhancement of patient outcomes as well as in determining the most suitable options for treatment plans for various infections. In doing so, Jackson Memorial Hospital must consider the adoption of information governance values such as the standard of accountability, protection, integrity, and transparency because this will ensure that Jackson Memorial Hospital's potential to realize the full benefits of information governance is attained.

Yours Sincerely,

Chief Information Officer Jackson Memorial Hospital

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