Analysis Report Two - Systems Integration and Decision Support

Author

Landon Wilson

Executive Summary

Many Healthcare organizations use different information systems to manage records of patient information, lab results, prescriptions, billing, staffing, supplies, and scheduling. System integrations help connect these areas so employees and managers are able to access complete information all from one place to make clinical and operational decisions. Electronic records and health-information exchange improve care coordination, reduce repeated administrative tasks, and can give authorized providers patient information faster than alternatives; meanwhile, clinical decision support systems use this information to give quick warnings and recommendations(Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology 2026a, 2026b; Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality 2026). With that being said, connecting more systems may cause an increased risk of cybersecurity, privacy, and data quality. The Northwind visualizations within this report demonstrate how joining tables allows for insights that wouldn’t be available from isolated data. This includes supplier concentration, availability, and cost patterns. Healthcare organizations should continue to improve their integration while continuing to increase employee training, security protections, and data governance.

Introduction

System integration allows for the connection of databases, tech, and organizational systems by allowing for information to be shared across an entire organization. Without this integration, departments across the same organization would have to store data in isolated systems, causing delays in data transfer. This forces employees to have to search for information and make decisions without the total understanding of the situation. By organizing data and presenting useful information, decision-support systems can use the data at the same time to make decisions. Within healthcare, having clinical decision support that shows medication warnings, patient summaries, recommended orders, and reminders can mean life or death for some patients(Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality 2026). Integration is especially important because healthcare professionals can have information such as health records, pharmacies, providers, and lab results to speed up the process of helping patients get better. While connecting all of these different systems can improve the overall care in the healthcare industry, that technology still depends on how accurate the data is, as well as having compatible systems, proper security, and employees who know how to use the information.

Outside Research

System integration can show how healthcare technology can support and challenge organizational strategic objectives. Having electronic health records will allow healthcare professionals to access a shared file on a certain patient and will decrease delays caused by communication and incomplete records(Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology 2026a). Having a health information exchange can extend this process through safely sharing data between healthcare providers, causing a reduction in duplicate testing and improving treatment decisions(Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology 2026b). Decision-support tools analyze patient information, allowing medication alerts and treatment recommendations(Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality 2026). However, this integration can also create challenges when different systems have incompatible data formats or even inaccurate information, causing more time to be spent on the transfer of data. Interoperability standards allow different systems to exchange information by interpreting data from one system to another (World Health Organization 2023). Due to integrative systems storing lots of sensitive patient information, organizations have to have a high standard of cybersecurity protections. The HIPAA Security Rule requires that administrative, physical, and technical safeguards be set in place to protect electronic health information (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2026). With that being said, healthcare organizations need to balance the benefits of integration with security, data management, and effective governance.

Data Visualizations

The Northwind database represents a commercial company rather than a healthcare organization; its tables show how systems support decision-making due to the multiple tables that must be joined to answer meaningful management questions. The first visualization joins supplier and product tables together using SupplierID to create a stacked bar chart allowing people to view the product availability by supplier country as well as discontinued status. Taking it a step further by adding a CategoryID to identify the types of products supplied by each country. Using this additional information, managers can recognize supplier concentration, allowing them to make decisions about diversification, inventory, and purchasing strategies. Moving over to the second visualization, we can find the combination of orders, order details, and product tables using order ID and Product ID to give us a comparison of the qualities ordered for Boston Crab Meat and Alice Mutton, shown by a boxplot that highlights the differences in purchasing patterns. Because each table shows different information, the visualization demonstrates how integrating multiple data sources can provide helpful insights that would not be possible from a single table. Healthcare organizations can apply this same approach by connecting suppliers, inventory, and medical supply records to improve their resource allocation, purchasing decisions, and inventory management.

Visualization One - Two Table Join

SELECT Suppliers.Country,
       Products.ProductName,
       Products.Discontinued
FROM Suppliers
INNER JOIN Products
ON Suppliers.SupplierID = Products.SupplierID

ggplot(data = myquery1,
       aes(y = Country,
           fill = as.factor(Discontinued))) +
  geom_bar() +
  theme_minimal() +
  labs(
    title = "Products by Supplier Country",
    subtitle = "Grouped by Discontinued Status",
    x = "Number of Products",
    y = "Supplier Country",
    fill = "Discontinued",
    caption = "Source: Northwind SQLite"
  )

Visualization Two - Three Table Join

SELECT Products.ProductName,
       Orders.OrderID,
       Orders.OrderDate,
       od.Quantity
FROM Orders
INNER JOIN "Order Details" AS od
ON Orders.OrderID = od.OrderID
INNER JOIN Products
ON od.ProductID = Products.ProductID
WHERE Products.ProductName = "Boston Crab Meat"
OR Products.ProductName = "Alice Mutton"

ggplot(data = myquery2,
       aes(x = Quantity,
           y = ProductName)) +
  geom_boxplot() +
  theme_minimal() +
  labs(
    title = "Order Quantity Distribution by Product",
    subtitle = "Comparison of Boston Crab Meat and Alice Mutton",
    x = "Quantity Ordered",
    y = "Product",
    caption = "Source: Northwind SQLite"
  )

Recommendations for Industry

While Healthcare organizations should use system integrations as a strategic decision, they are often only seen as a technology project. Leaders should start by identifying clinical and operational decisions they would like to improve and then find out which systems must be connected in order to provide the necessary information. Organizations that use interoperability standards should select technologies that allow them to exchange information and be correctly viewed across departments and outside providers(World Health Organization 2023). Businesses should also create data governance policies that restrict who can access information, allowing less cybersecurity risk. This also would show who is responsible for correcting errors, and which system contains the official version of specific data. Cybersecurity protections should also include a risk assessment, as well as employee training, backups, role-based access, and response plans, as integrated systems contain large amounts of confidential data for patients and employees.(U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2026). Lastly, organizations should look to evaluate if decision support tools can actually improve care, efficiency, and overall employee performance after the implementation rather than just assuming that the more technology that can be used, the better the decisions are.

References

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. 2026. “Clinical Decision Support.” Agency for Healthcare Research; Quality. https://www.ahrq.gov/cpi/about/otherwebsites/clinical-decision-support/index.html.

Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. 2026a. “Electronic Health Records and Their Benefits.” HealthIT.gov. https://healthit.gov/health-it-basics/benefits-ehrs/.

———. 2026b. “Health Information Exchange Benefits.” HealthIT.gov. https://healthit.gov/health-it-basics/hie-benefits/.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 2026. “The Security Rule.” U.S. Department of Health; Human Services. https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/security/index.html.

World Health Organization. 2023. “WHO and HL7 Collaborate to Support Adoption of Open Interoperability Standards.” World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/news/item/03-07-2023-who-and-hl7-collaborate-to-support-adoption-of-open-interoperability-standards.