PowerPoint Presentation of Assignment

Competiveness and Performance Effectiveness for Health Care IT Systems

Teresa Pride

Strayer University

February 25, 2018

Dr. Renita Ellis

HSA 315 Health Information Systems

Information technology (IT) has undergone significant improvements thereby requiring organizations to integrate these technologies to remain competitive. Considerably, health institutions are striving to improve primary care delivery, a facet that can be attained by incorporating the use of IT in service delivery. Information technology systems enable these institutions to streamline their processes based on its ability to improve the communication aspect of the system. Enhanced communication between employees and management simplify the organization’s operations as information can be shared in real time. Notably, healthcare institutions have priorities that must be addressed adequately to ensure that both the patients and stakeholders are satisfied with the organization’s service delivery system. Based on this, the institutions ought to retain IT management personnel to sustain its processes. This paper discusses the responsibilities and characteristics of the Chief Information and Chief Technology Officers. Additionally, the paper outlines how technologies can be used to improve healthcare processes, approaches to prevent misuse of information by upholding data privacy, strategies for organizations to train providers in using IT, and best practices for efficient IT alignment with strategic planning initiatives.

Characteristics and Roles of a CTO and a CIO

Often people confuse the two important senior leadership roles within the health care organization, the Chief Information Officer and Chief Technology Officer (Wager, Lee and Glaser 2013). Despite this, they have distinct tasks that must be performed to ensure the smooth running of the healthcare organization. Primarily, the CTO ensures that the institution’s services are tailored to meet the needs of the consumers. Notably, technological innovations are continually evolving thereby the organizations should retain an individual who is conversant with the new changes whenever they occur. In this regard, the CTO has the responsibility of advising top-level executives on strategic decisions regarding technology (Stephens, Ledbetter, Mitra & Ford, 2011). Additionally, the CTO identifies, evaluates and examines high return and high-risk IT systems with the potential of its application within the organization. As a result, the CTO must assess and monitor technologies for use in better service delivery in the future. The CTO’s focus is the client whereby he/she uses technology to foster collaboration amid suppliers and management to promote the organization’s services (Stephens, Ledbetter, Mitra & Ford, 2011). As the CTO works in the external environment, he/she can comprehend what is working in other institutions and apply it within the organization.

On the other hand, the CIO manages the information technology department and ties the gap between the medical and the IT department. The fundamental role of the CIO comprises of assisting the management executives on acquisition and management of IT systems. Based on this, the CIO takes the responsibility of maintaining and facilitating the implementation of the integrated IT architecture (Stephens, Ledbetter, Mitra & Ford, 2011). Additionally, the CIO works in tandem with senior management to develop a shared vision that states the roles and distinct contributions of the IT department. Significantly, the CIO ensures that the healthcare providers are trained on the use of IT systems, for instance, the electronic health record (EHR). Considerably, both the CTO and the CIO should be creative as this skill will enable them to design a good IT department (Stephens, Ledbetter, Mitra & Ford, 2011). Through this, they can design effective approaches for use in training the healthcare providers and additional support staff. For example, physicians trained on the efficient use of the EHR will ensure data protection and confidentiality. Additionally, the officers can create a chat box on the organizational website to help users facing difficulties on using the system.

Developing Technologies that Health Care Systems Use

The incorporation of effective information and communication technology will support the drive to attain a consistent, high quality, sustainable, and cost-efficient healthcare system within the organization. To improve healthcare processes, the organization should integrate both electronic prescribing and the clinical decision support system (CDS). Electronic prescribing is a developing technology being integrated into health institutions rapidly. Primarily, this is enhanced by its ability to provide substantial benefits both to the patients and physicians. According to the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology approximately 70% of physicians have transmitted prescriptions electronically which is s significant improvement from virtually zero in 2007 (Porterfield, Engelbert & Coustasse, 2014).

The rapid use of this technology is enhanced by the vast benefits such as prevention of prescription drug errors. E-prescribing eliminates illegibility by providing the physician access to the patient’s prescription history thereby reducing chances of dispensing wrong medications (Porterfield, Engelbert & Coustasse, 2014). Considerably, this technology integrates automated clinical decision support whereby it removes guesswork by prompting the healthcare providers to fill out the dose, strength, route, and frequency thereby alleviating risks associated with handwritten prescriptions. Additionally, E-prescribing provides physicians with instant access to a patient’s documented allergies and previously prescribed medications, whereby it will trigger clinical alerts concerning any potential for adverse reactions (Porterfield, Engelbert & Coustasse, 2014). Considerably, E-prescribing enables the physician to prescribe controlled substances in a single workflow thereby streamlining organizational processes and reducing the overall costs incurred.

Notably, the CDS provides the healthcare providers, other staff members and patients with the knowledge and person-specific information that is available at all times thereby enhancing the provision of quality primary care (Romano & Stafford, 2011). To improve healthcare, the CDS comprises of varying tools that facilitate decision making to simplify clinical workflow. These tools encompass computerized reminders and alerts to the patients and healthcare providers, condition-specific instruction sets, clinical guidelines, patient data reports and summaries, and diagnostic support that is supplemented with relevant reference information (Romano & Stafford, 2011). Significantly, CDS has essential benefits including avoidance of errors and adverse events, increased quality of care, improved efficiency, enhanced health outcomes, patient satisfaction and cost-benefit. Considerably, CDS is a sophisticated IT component that can be integrated into the organization's procedures to improve the quality of primary care. Primarily, its importance is highlighted by the ability to enhance the clinical decision-making process by addressing information overload faced by most clinicians and providing a platform for incorporating evidence-based knowledge in care delivery.

Significant Methods Used to Prevent Misuse of Information

The ever-evolving technologies have enhanced the integration of information technology system into organizational methods. Despite the importance of improving the efficiency of operations and patient satisfaction, there are varying concerns regarding the privacy and security of the health information. Preventing the misuse of health information requires the use of a sophisticated method that restricts access to the patient’s health records (Agrawal & Johnson, 2007). The notable approaches for protecting patient information include authentication and access control. Notably, authentication refers to the process of verifying the identity of a user within a computing environment. Primarily, it decides the access to healthcare information similar to how legal and illegal financial transactions are controlled. Authentication entails the use of different criteria such as using a card, signature, password or callback scheme to access information (Agrawal & Johnson, 2007). Considerably, the effectiveness of this approach depends on the user’s integrity as he/she is not permitted to share the credentials. The classical method of authentication is assigning users a unique identifier such as a password. However, there are vast shortcomings associated with this approach including sharing of information by personnel who lack integrity and use of passwords that can be easily guessed.

Considerably, access control is similar to authentication in that the process differs after the user has been identified. With access control, once the user has been identified, the next phase is determining the privileges that he or she has regarding accessing patient information. Therefore, this guarantees the protection of access to particular application programs and specific sets of patient data. In the healthcare organization that has a distributed framework, the use of databases ensures that specific accounts are created that contain information for each user based on their privileges (Agrawal & Johnson, 2007). The typical approach is a hierarchical file structure whereby protection is assigned at each node. Notably, the protections are assigned to control the capacity of performing operations on the data sets, for example, deleting, reading or appending. Therefore, both authentication and access approach are effective approaches to protecting patient information as they restrict access to private data.

Strategy for Healthcare Organizations to Train Providers

Training healthcare providers on the use of information technology systems equips them with the desirable skills for use in enhancing efficient primary care delivery within the organization. Despite this, there are varying training approaches, some of which have proved ineffective in the past. Notably, the healthcare providers can be trained using super-user training (Health IT. Gov., 2017). This training strategy takes advantage of vendor training by creating a group of “super users.” The super users are healthcare providers trained on how to move through the information technology systems such as the EMR with the ability to quickly share tips, helpful information, and techniques (Health IT. Gov., 2017). The super core users will provide training to the clinicians and office staff. This training strategy is a crucial component for use in healthcare institutions based on its ability to combine specialized training while informing the health care provider how the IT system will be used in the institution for specific processes and patient population.

Best Practices in Effective IT Alignment

Efficient IT alignment with the strategic initiative is essential to healthcare organizations. Lack of proper planning and training will impact the organization's ability to attain its goals. Consequently, this will enhance patient dissatisfaction resulting in decreased revenues. Therefore, it is essential to identify the technologies for use in streamlining the organizational processes. To avoid difficulties during the implementation of the new technology, prior evaluation enables the organization to integrate a system that is in line with its strategic initiatives. Considerably, the healthcare providers should be adequately trained to ensure they possess the desirable skills of disseminating care with the use of the new processes. Additionally, a continuous evaluation program should be adapted to collect information for use in improving emerging challenges. Constructive feedback will highlight the major challenges encountered so that they can be addressed promptly.

The paper covered the responsibilities and characteristics of the Chief Information Office and Chief Technology Officer while focusing on the importance of technology in sustaining the healthcare industry. The technologies that healthcare systems should improve for care delivery were discussed including E-prescribing and the CDS. Additionally, authentication and access control were highlighted as the effective approaches for use in protecting patient information. Considerably, super user training was identified as an effective training method for physicians and support staff. Lastly, the best practices for effective IT alignment and strategic planning initiatives comprise of integrating appropriate technology, training of health care providers and continuous evaluation to provide constructive feedback.

References

Agrawal, R., & Johnson, C. (2007). Securing electronic health records without impeding the flow of information. International journal of medical informatics, 76(5-6), 471-479

Health IT. Gov. (2017). How should I train my staff? Accessed February 22, 2018 from https://www.healthit.gov/providers-professionals/faqs/how-should-i-train-my-staff

Porterfield, A., Engelbert, K., & Coustasse, A. (2014). Electronic prescribing: improving the efficiency and accuracy of prescribing in the ambulatory care setting. Perspectives in Health Information Management, 11(spring)

Romano, M. J., & Stafford, R. S. (2011). Electronic health records and clinical decision support systems: impact on national ambulatory care quality. Archives of internal medicine, 171(10), 897-903

Stephens, C. S., Ledbetter, W. N., Mitra, A., & Ford, F. N. (2011). "Executive or Functional Manager? The Nature of the CIO's Job."MIS Quarterly, 16(4): 449-468

Wager, K. A., Lee, F. W., & Glaser, J. P. (2013). Healthcare information systems: A practical approach for health care management (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass