Using information networks as a decision-making tool.

: Reforms in healthcare have made the industry more competitive than ever. With budgets being cut all across the country, many healthcare managers are being asked to do more with less, and to do it more quickly. This combination of dynamics creates the need for tools that can help healthcare decision makers make good strategic decisions quickly and confidently. One such tool available to hospitals are information networks. A healthcare information network is an organization that streamlines and expedites decision-making processes by providing healthcare facilities with information that is either too time consuming or impossible for the facility to gather on its own. The information networks conduct research, analyze and condense the findings, and forward relevant data to the member facilities. By outsourcing the tedious research, analysis, synthesis, and presentation of key decision-making data to the information networks, member hospitals free their limited resources to concentrate on the details of the day-to-day operations. In most cases, hospitals that use information networks can also receive the information back more quickly than if they had done the research themselves.