Channels/Medium of Communication in Health Information Management

Health information management (HIM) is the practice of acquiring, analyzing and
protecting digital and traditional medical information vital to providing
quality patient care. To effective carry out these duties, there are some
channels which are needed by the health professionals to in their day to day
interactions in the cause of carrying out their duties.

THE BODY
There are different channels of communication
medium into two main categories:

Physical medium of communication in health
information management is where the person who is talking can be seen and heard
by the audience. The whole point here is to be able to not only hear the
messages but also to see the body language and feel the climate in the room.
This does not need to be two-way channels. In certain situations the receiver expects
physical communication.  These channels
include

Using large meetings in health information
management works very well when you need to get across strategic and important
messages to a large group of people at the same time, creating a wide
attention, get engagement or communicate a sense of belonging. Large meetings
are excellent when you want to present a new vision or strategy, inform about a
reorganisation of how information is managed in a health care setting. The
opportunity for dialogue is limited at large meeting, of course but you can
create smaller groups where dialogue can be performed.

In the weekly meetings health information
practitioners in a given group communicate daily operative issues, gives status
reports and solves problems. Weekly meetings are also used to follow up on
information from large meetings, management team meetings etc from a
“what’s-in-it-for-us-perspective”. This type of smaller group meetings gives
good opportunities for dialogue. This channel is often the most important channel
you have as a manager, because that’s where you have the opportunity to build
the big picture, you can prepare for change, you can create ownership of
important strategies and goals etc. This is a favourite among the types of
communication medium.

This is a form of meetings where, often, a senior
manager in health information management meets with a “random” selection of different
practitioners to discuss and answer questions. Some managers use this as an ongoing
activity on a monthly basis. It can also be used in launching new strategies.

Viral communication medium works in external as
well as internal and refer to making use pre-existing social networks to
produce increases in awareness or knowledge through self-replicating viral
processes. It can be word-of-mouth delivered or enhanced by the network effects
of social media.

The second of the two types of communication medium
used in health information management is mechanical media. With mechanical
media we mean written or electronic channels. These channels can be used as
archives for messages or for giving the big picture and a deeper knowledge. But
they can also be very fast. Typically though, because it is written, it is
always interpret by the reader based on his or her mental condition. Some of
the mechanical channels used in the management of health information include:

E-mail is a good channel for the daily
communication in health information management. It is suitable mainly for
up-to-date and “simple” messages and where there is no risk of
misunderstanding, E-mail is an important supplement to weekly meetings and the
Intranet. Invitation to and agenda for meetings can with advantage be sent out
with e-mail before the meeting, while background facts and minutes from
meetings is well suited to be stored on the Intranet.

Managers in health information management that have
large groups working with them and who has difficulties in meeting all of them
often choose to publish a personally weekly letter. It is sort of a short
summary of news with personally reflections. Many professionals often
appreciate it because it has the potential to give the “what’s-in-it-for-us”
angle. They can also contain summaries and status in tasks, projects or issues
– yesterday, today and tomorrow.

At special occasions it can be justified to send a
personal letter to employees in order to get attention to a specific issue. Or
it can be a letter with your personal commentary on an ongoing reorganisation
that affects many employees. One other example is a letter that summarizes the
past year and wishes all the best for the holidays.

The Intranet is of course one of the most used
types of communication medium and a very important communication channel and
work tool for you as a manager in health information management, but it is also
your job to help your employees prioritise and pick out the information on the
Intranet, as well as translating messages into local consequences.

A Magazine offers the opportunity to deepen a
specific issue, explain context, describing consequences or tell a story. It
also has the opportunity to reach many employees. If you want to create a broad
internal understanding of strategic messages the magazine can be a good vehicle
to use. As were the case with the Intranet you also have to “translate” the
information in the magazine to your employees.

SMS or text messaging to the mobile phone is one of
the new types of communication medium and not a very widely used channel in
health information management, but where it is used it is proven very
effective. Some companies use it as an alert system e.g. for giving managers a
head start when something important will be published on the Intranet. The
advantage with SMS is that it is fast. But it should be used rarely as an exclusive
channel.

Media designed to be disseminated through social
interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing
techniques. Social media supports the human need for social interaction, using
Internet- and web-based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues
(one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many). It supports the
democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content
consumers into content producers.

Channels You can also divide the different types of
communication medium in Push or Pull channels. 

Push channels are channels where
the sender is pushing the message to the receiver. Meaning it is up to the
sender to control the communication.

Pull channels on the other hand
is when the receiver is pulling the message from the sender. It is up to the
receiver when he or she wants to take in the message.

Push channels are often regarded
as having higher reliability than pull channels because of the fact that it is
more active in the communication.

Health information management professionals
plan information
systems, develop health policy,
and identify current and future information needs. In addition, they may apply
the science of informatics
to the collection, storage, analysis, use, and transmission of information to
meet legal, professional, ethical and administrative records-keeping
requirements of health care
delivery.  Proper collection, management
and use of information within healthcare systems “will determine the system’s
effectiveness in detecting health problems, defining priorities, identifying
innovative solutions and allocating resources to improve health outcomes and
for this do be effectively carried out, information must be communicated in an
effective way to ensure that all concerned receive and understand the message
being passed.