Standards and Health Care Applications and Operations. Medicine Essay

Healthcare Applications
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In the context of health care, the data standards are used to collect information from different patients, store this information, exchange and retrieve it whenever needed by the doctor or nurse. There are different sets of standards, but the two most important are patient identifiers and accreditation. In any health care system, it becomes essential to identify a patient based on his gender, age, sex, and disease. Without proper identification and confidentiality of data, it may not be possible to help the patient recover from the disease. According to Rob Baggott, the patient identifier is the standard that helps recognize a patient and distinguish him from other patients of the same ward or the entire hospital (Baggott, 2004, p. 215). For this purpose, at least three types of identification information are collected. Sometimes, a patient or his family member/friend is asked to submit the ID card, the medical history, and documents of family background. It is the responsibility of the healthcare department or the hospital manager to protect these identifiable documents. It will minimize the risk of misidentification of the patient and the mismatch when he/she is diagnosed, treated or provided with medications (Baggott, 2004).
The patient can tell their name, address, contact number and date of birth while verifying the identifiable documents, and should never share this information with all the staff members. Ideally, they can share this information with the relevant doctor or nurse to reduce the chances of losing their private details. A study conducted by Paul David Bell reveals that the accreditation standards contribute to the patient safety and reduce medical errors to an extent. They ensure that quality care is being provided to all patients without any discrimination. There are, however, no limits to the level of quality care because some patients may require better treatment facilities to get recovered than the others (Bell, 2000, p. 40). In the hospital, the accreditation standards help doctors and nurses diagnose and cure the patients in a better way. In the absence of these standards, they might not be able to perform well and help patients in the way they are expected to be. For example, if a patient with a chronic disease needs immediate help, then without the accreditation, his treatment may not b started as soon as possible. Similarly, if someone has diabetes and visits the hospital to have insulin injections, he/she needs to be accreditated so that the nurse or doctor can provide quick insulin, the one that could save his/her life and ensure satisfactory results in the long run (Bell, 2000).
It is safe to say that both patient identification and accreditation are necessary to provide timely treatment and medications. Until a patient is not identified or not accreditated, the doctor or nurse may not be able to begin the treatment...