Healthcare is a very important part of our society and it is imperative for healthcare providers to do their jobs in an efficient and effective manner. Each day hundreds of thousands of patients enter healthcare facilities challenging the administration to run the show smoothly. The employees have to manage and integrate clinical, financial and operational information that grows with the practice. Previously, this data was organized manually, which was time consuming and failed to deliver the desired level of efficiency. Most professionally run hospitals and clinics now rely on hospital information systems ( HIS ) that help them manage all their medical and administrative information.

A hospital information system ( HIS ) is essentially a computer system that can manage all the information to allow health care providers to do their jobs effectively. These systems have been around since they were first introduced in the 1960s and have evolved with time and the modernization of healthcare facilities. The computers were not as fast in those days and they were not able to provide information in real time as they do today. The staff used them primarily for managing billing and hospital inventory. All this has changed now, and today hospital information systems include the integration of all clinical, financial and administrative applications.

Modern HIS includes many applications addressing the needs of various departments in a hospital. They manage the data related to the clinic, finance department, laboratory, nursing, pharmacy and also the radiology and pathology departments. The hospitals that have switched to HIS have access to quick and reliable information including patients’ records illustrating details about their demographics, gender, age etc.