That cup of coffee you start your day with may have more of an effect than just get you going, a newly discovered health benefit of coffee shows it might also help prevent type 2 diabetes according to new research. Earlier work has found a relationship with coffee and a lower chance of type 2 diabetes with the Chinese team who conducted this latest study believing they might understand why. There are three compounds that are naturally a part of coffee likely to offer some benefits – caffeine, caffeic and chlorogenic acid.

The team believes that coffee compounds and metabolites might be able to block the toxic formation of hIAPP (known as human islet amyloid polypeptide). Though it is normally found in a healthy pancreas, sometimes abnormal protein deposits come from hIAPP and these are regularly seen in patients who have type 2 diabetes.

The team from China wondered if blocking the formation of such deposits could help protect against, or possibly be used as a treatment for type 2 diabetes. Perhaps there was a way to keep these deposits from being made at all?

A 2009 study found that subjects who consumed the most coffee had the least chance of being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. With every cup of coffee participants drank each day the risk of this most common form of diabetes went down by 7%. So, the Chinese team conducted experiments in the lab to see if the compounds that are naturally a part of coffee could limit the incidence of the abnormal deposits that come with hIAPP.

They saw that all three of the most common elements in coffee did bring down the unwanted protein deposits, with caffeic acid being most effective. Chlorogenic acid and also caffeine are effective, but to a lesser degree. Decaffeinated coffee has even higher amounts of both caffeic and chlorogenic acid, so when it comes to type 2 diabetes, this may be a better choice than caffeinated coffees are.

But, caution the researchers, this work has been done on cells, so no one can say if coffee might stop diabetes in the real world, when consumed as people normally do.

Some U.S. experts in diabetes are optimistic about the findings, but guardedly so, as the work was conducted using cells, with no animal or human trials. Also, there is still a question if the deposits from hIAPP are a determining factor in terms of developing type 2 diabetes, or is it something that comes after this.

As to the 2009 work that found the link between a lower chance of developing type 2 diabetes and drinking coffee, this type of study cannot suggest cause and effect, rather only an association between two things. There may be other lifestyle factors in coffee drinkers that also protect them from type 2 diabetes, but have yet to be studied.

It’s too early to say if protection against type 2 diabetes is a definite health benefit of coffee. Rather, you should be taking other, more proven steps to reduce your risk – walk for a half hour 5 days a week, and cut calories a bit so you lose some weight.

Health information is extremely important in the medical practice. The truth of the matter is that many lives have been saved as a result of reliable and interoperable electronic medical related information. When this information is shared in an appropriate manner, things like confidentiality, security and privacy of the information it is extremely helpful.

Getting this information in the right hands is equally important, because resources in the wrong hands could cause serious health problems, even the loss of lives. It is therefore just as crucial to ensure that health information is shared with those who are authorized to access the information. Here are some basic fundamentals of understanding the exchange of health information:

What is Health Information Exchange?

Health information exchange or HIE can be described as the process of sharing reliable electronic health-related data or information in a specific manner that brings protection to the security, confidentiality and privacy of the information. In other words, HIE facilitates the mobilization healthcare or medical information electronically to recipients within a specific region, hospital or community system.

How Does the HIE Operates?

Unlike any other information exchange system, the HIE system provides the unique ability to transfer medical information among varying health care information systems. The health care information is mobilized to other systems without doing any damage or changing the true meaning of the data being exchanged. The HIE system basically communicates medical and health-related information to other systems through an electronic medium.

What is the Goal of the HIE system?

In understanding the basics about the HIE, you will need also to understand the purpose or goal of the system. The goals and objectives of the HIE system is to accommodate a transmission, access and retrieval of health care information. Not only must the information be transmitted, accessed and retrieved in a timely manner, but it must be done with efficiency, effectiveness and equitability.

The HIE system was created with safety as a priority feature for transmitting, accessing and retrieving clinical information. In addition to this, patient-centered care was also among the major reasons for designing the HIE system. It is therefore used in Public Health facilities and Private health care facilities as a means of rendering assistance in analyzing the health of the population.

What is the Primary Challenge to the HIE system?

In understanding the HIE system and the hl7 interface, a good understanding of the challenges associated will help you to develop an overall appreciation for the system. The primary challenge facing the HIE system is the implementation challenge to create or design a standardized, reliable and interoperable model that fulfills its objectives.

The model of objectives of being reliable, trusted sustainable, dependable and patient centric is of utmost importance. While it is believed that HIE systems will contribute to the improvement of the overall quality of the care of patients, its implementation, if not undertaken appropriately will hinder, if not undo the desired improvements. In addition to this, an error filled implementation of the HIE system may even contribute to higher healthcare costs.

When speaking of healthcare systems one envisages an information intensive industry within which reliable and timely information is essentially used in order to plan and monitor service provision. Health Information Systems represents a useful resource to make the process of delivering healthcare more effective and efficient.

Therefore, the article intends to provide a clearer image on the contents of a HIS.

As a part of the patient care process, a HIS collects data relevant to the parties involved. The data centralized by means of a health information system are used within many other systems for achieving numerous various purposes. Confidentiality and security safeguards have to be available principles when handling this information. Patient data and data from other facilities have to be combined and integrated into a whole, the result being used by several professional groups. Health information systems work on the basis of certain applications that process all this information so that many different organizations and professional groups can have access to it.

Here are the major concepts related to the system of health information. The first one is represented by health/medical informatics and telematics. The respective defines the field that deals with:

* the cognitive, information processing;
* communication tasks of medical practice, education;
* research including the information science and technology to sustain the respective tasks.

Medical informatics concerns itself with resources, devices and methods necessary for the optimization of acquisition, storage and retrieval. The tools used within this field are represented by computers, formal medical terminologies, clinical guidelines and systems of information and communication. Clinical and biomedical applications constitute the areas of the highest interest, the specialists seeking to integrate them among themselves or to more administrative-type health information system.

A second important aspect to be treated when discussing about a HIS is health information technology (HIT). It refers to the application of the information processing by means of both computer hardware and software in order to store, retrieve, share and make use of health care information, data and knowledge for communication and decision making.

Electronic medical record (EMR), electronic health record (EHR) and electronic patient record (EPR) are other three notions with tremendous importance relative to a health information system. The first one is a digital- format medical record used as a standard. The electronic health record denominates the medical record in digital format of an individual patient. The totality of electronic health records are coordinated, stored and retrieved within the EHR system with the help of computers.

The degree of personalization goes further with the electronic patient record that electronically stores health information about one individual uniquely identified by an identifier. ERP technology involves capturing, retrieving, transmitting and handling data specific to a patient, related to healthcare, which include clinical, administrative and biographical information.