IFSM - Healthcare Systems

Fall 2019

Contents Introduction and background 2 Organization Analysis and Requirements 2 Introduction 2 Strategic use of technology 3 Components of an information system 4 Functional requirements 6 Summary 7 References 8

Dr. Thomson had a noble idea of opening a medical facility known as Midtown in 1990. This idea was strongly influenced by the cropping up of many family residential buildings in his locality. From the onset, the clinic experienced several challenges that rendered it ineffective. It was seriously understaffed. Dr. Thomson could only afford to employ two nurses to aid him in operations. The few staff members could not manage to handle an influx of patients seeking services. Poor services were occasionally rendered. Patients complained of having to wait for prolonged periods before their appointments were honored. On average, the wait time was nearly 2 hours. The overreliance of the clinic on manual records further compounded the problem. Tracing patient records in a manual system is a tedious process that results in the loss of valuable time. The clinic urgently requires to institute an Electronic Health Records (EHR) system to boost its operations. This would be an essential step in the digitization drive that would bring many benefits to the organization. The workload per nurse would substantially decline. This would translate to better service delivery to patients as the wait time decreases. The revenue streams of the clinic would receive a significant boost because many patients would be served. This report analyzes the clinic and provides the associated recommendations.

The focus of this section is on the evaluation of the operations that characterize the Midtown clinic ranging from processes and staff members. The overriding objective of the review is to assess how technological integration through EHR would boost the operational efficiency of the clinic. The assessment would focus on the challenges, data, processes, system requirements, and users.

Appropriate technological utilization is premised on how efficient entity goals are structured to align with the technology under consideration. Technology is always an enabler that simplifies how an entity cost-effectively executes its task. The strategic objectives that characterize the Midtown clinic are chronicled below.

1. It is boosting the profitability portfolio and efficiency of the clinic to facilitate future upgrades. EHR would bring unrivaled automation to major processes that characterize the clinic ranging from storage and retrieval of patient records (Hammons & Dowd, 2015). This translates to efficiency. The revenue streams of the clinic are bound to increase as many patients are served. Additional finances would be utilized to fund the expansion and prioritized upgrades.

2. Acquisition of additional rental space to set up a more prominent clinic. EHR has a net effect of boosting the productive capacity of the clinic through service to many clients. This implies that the clinic would have the requisite funds to procure the rental space.

3. Renovation investment. The accomplishment of any significant renovations requires extensive funding. EHR are essential catalysts of this process. The efficiency that EHR brings ensures that the firms can make substantial savings on costs. The clinic would undoubtedly be in a better liquidity position to handle renovations.

The components that define an information system (IS) range from people, processes, data, and technology. The explanations about the components have been provided below. The focus is on the EHR of the clinic.

1. People – They constitute a vital component. IS is designed with an important goal of satisfying the needs of these individuals. They range from owners, analysts, and workers who would be utilizing the system to facilitate their daily endeavors (Hammons & Dowd, 2015). The utility of any system emanates from the inherent ability to capture and facilitate individual functions in our case. The following people would utilize EHR of the Midtown clinic.

a) Dr. Thomson – This individual performs dual functionalities of being the manager and de-facto owner of the clinic. EHR may be particularly helpful to Thomson in managing the finances of the entity. It would be relatively easy to manage inventories and apportioning costs in real-time. Additionally, EHR would aid in the scheduling function. Patients can book their appointments with the doctor online. Patients would be saved from the burden of waiting for long hours without service.

b) Vivian – Being the nurse administrator, EHR would be an essential tool in the performance of roles like scheduling and billing functionalities. An automated billing system ensures that recording, compilation, and analysis of bills is done in a better fashion. Proper scheduling guarantees that the limited nurses in her purview are deployed in the most effective methodology to optimize returns.

c) Maria – As the nurse, EHR will facilitate her in performing a host of roles ranging from electronically recording and retrieving patient records from EHR databases. The performance capacity of the nurse would exponentially increase.

2. Organization processes - These processes encompass the logical segmentation and coordination of tasks in a manner that guarantees that services rendered to clients are quality and satisfactory. Midtown EHR would support the following processes.

a) Recording and retrieval process – EHR would provide a radical makeover to these processes. Manual records that dominated the operations of Midtown would be converted to digital formats. The digitization would simplify the retrieval process. Virtually all the records would be accessed instantly by a simple click (Larkin & Holston, 2016). Loss of records through careless handling would not arise. The records would be digitally backed up at the inputting phase.

b) Billing process - EHR would bring sanity in the manner in which the Midtown clinic handles its bills arising from operations. The need to maintain tedious manual financial records would be forgone. The bills would be electronically monitored and generated by the EHR system. Moreover, the necessity to rely on third-party entities as the only facilitators to bill patients’ insurance companies would be forgone in totality (Webster, 2014). The elimination of such cost drivers would place the clinic on a profit trajectory.

c) Appointment scheduling process – EHR would digitize how appointments are made. An integrated module that is fronted by the EHR would facilitate seamless coordination of appointments between the doctors and his attendants. This would undoubtedly alleviate the risk of collisions or dishonored appointments that are a source of irritation among customers. Moreover, the system can be revamped to catapult prospective clients into seeking appointments through online platforms (Webster, 2014). The need to solicit appointments through attendants would subside.

3. Data

The following table stipulates a list of data sets that the EHR system would be composed of to facilitate efficiency in the execution of its tasks.

They specify the expectations that the EHR system is supposed to accomplish (Larkin & Holston, 2016). The preceding table catalogs the list of essential functions that the system must execute.

The integration of the EHR system in the operations of the Midtown clinic would be an important milestone in its history. The system would propel the entity towards the achievement of its stipulated goals. The system addresses significant areas that are consequential to the clinic ranging from proper information storage, efficiency, and sound management. The analytic details that have been provided above are crucial in informing the right decision.

Hammons, T., & Dowd, B. (2015). Medical groups’ adoption of electronic health records and information systems. Health affairs journal, 24(5), 1323-1333.

Larkin, T. & Holston, F. T. (2016). Building a comprehensive clinical information system from components. Cambridge University Press.

Webster, C. (2014). EHR business process management: from process mining to process improvement to process usability. In Proc Healthcare Systems Process Improvement Conference.