Zacchaeus O. Omogbadegun

Security in Healthcare Information Systems

Healthcare informatics affirm that healthcare presents most problems of user control with disparate, individualized and often vulnerable users having little information with which to assess service quality and little choice, at least within the formal hospital sector. Also, consultative experience in many Healthcare Organization (HCO) IT environments strongly suggests that technical security fundamentals are consistently neglected. Integrated network and systems architectures provide the means for healthcare to get out of this predicament in the age of the wily hacker. More than ever, healthcare and financial organizations require comprehensive, easy-to-deploy solutions for protecting private data within the email system. Security in healthcare information systems is among the highest priority research areas as part of the new security framework for HIPAA-compliant healthcare information. This paper appraises security concerns in healthcare information systems and concludes that what is needed is an approach that firmly cements the foundations for a sustainable and efficient healthcare system based on solidarity and built to cope with the emerging threats. The model emerging from this approach would require a robust security infrastructure to support authentication, confidentiality, and data integrity so that there is no single point of failure that, if compromised, would give access to all the information.

IMPLEMENTING A WEB-BASED IMMUNIZATION SCHEDULE REMINDER FOR POSTNATAL SERVICE DELIVERY

The mortality rate of infants under the age of five is still relatively high in many sub-Sahara African countries like Nigeria. Immunization remains the most crucial and cost-effective public health intervention scheme for protecting children in this region from vaccine-preventable diseases. Immunization, however, is only effective if the nursing mothers keep strict appointment schedules. To this effect, information technology can be leveraged to help in this regard. This paper thus implements a web-based immunization schedule reminder for postnatal service delivery. In order to realize the system, a component-based development approach was used to extend an existing electronic medical record to include the immunization schedule reminder. The resulting system is able to reduce child mortality by reducing the rate of missed appointment schedules. Keywords and phrases: immunization, child mortality, schedule reminder, postnatal service delivery.