System Recommendation - Health Care

Introduction and background

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.

Midtown Family Clinic wants to improve the center and store patient information electronically to convey viable patient administrations and quality consideration. Hence, the center will cooperate with different organizations with information; to serve patients while making it less convoluted for the patients and medical caretakers in the facility. Consequently, sharing a considerable amount of information will not help since each department needs particular information to help patients, depending on their scope of service that they offer. Two external organizations and the information required to be shared between them and the center to serve patients are evaluated in this stage. It 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.

Information sharing is the establishment of an effective healthcare management approach (Skelley, 2013). Midtown Family Clinics have to impart information to various drug stores and insurance carriers to increase the efficiency of the center. The center needs to impart information to drug stores to endorse solutions like check the medical history of patients. Midtown Family Clinic has to impart information to insurance providers to process medical claims and restorative charging.

Midtown Family Clinic needs to cooperate with departments like the pharmaceutical ones and drug suppliers to improve its service delivery to patients through avoidance of delays when attending to them. The facility will utilize Electronic Health Records (EHR) to share information among them and those still using the traditional means aiming to help patients to get their prescriptions and for it to get better healthcare administrations. Also, Dr. Harold Thompson will improve his facility in applying this strategy. There are such a significant number of information components that can be imparted to those organizations even though each of them requires given information to ensure that they operate as desired. Some external departments that this center needs to communicate with include the drug stores and health insurance, providers.

1. External Organization #1 – Pharmacy

· Availing the appropriate drugs is vital to maintain a strategic distance from unfavorably susceptible response or some other medical problem. Sharing remedies electronically is the ideal approach to stay away from any issue. Midtown Family Clinic is utilizing paper solutions that could be lost or misty to the drug specialist, so sharing remedy data electronically will spare time for center, patient, and drug stores. Significantly, the patient gets the prescription the specialist endorsed to all the more likely treat them.

2. External Organization #2 – Health Insurance Providers

· Sharing patient's socioeconomics in detail is essential for both the facility and the protection suppliers to bring up with each correspondence to abstain from confusing one understanding with another. Patients' social data, including name, date of birth, address, sexual orientation, and more, is guaranteeing that the patient being dealt with is the correct patient. Keeping up this information is significant for exact charging. This information will guarantee the administration has been given to the correct patient by coordinating this information that was shared from the facility with the protection's database. Nursing in Midtown Family Clinic will have the option to refresh this information whenever before presenting the bill to the protection suppliers. 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.

Data sharing between Midtown Family Clinic with other external organizations is useful for all the parties involved. The center is managing vast data consistently, and offering this information to others while utilizing EHR will be advantageous for the patients. For instance, the center will impart information to the stores and health caregivers and, more likely, serve the patient and get quick help without managing a ton of administrative work. A few information components, like Patient Demographics and protection data, can be similar across all the organizations sharing data. However, there are specific data that should be imparted to an explicit association. For the EHR framework to be executed to address the issue to share information from Midtown Family Clinic to drug stores and medical coverage suppliers, the kind of information to be shared must be distinguished. The sorts of information to be shared just as to/from these associations will be recognized in the table below.

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. External Organization #1 - Pharmacies

a. National Council for Prescription Drug Programs (NCPDP) SCRIPT

The NCPDP is an electronic standard for those associated with administrative roles in the medical context dealing with the identification of drugs. This standard identifies with apportioning, endorsement, observation, and payments (National Council for Prescription Drug Programs, n.d.).

b. The data interchange standard requires hardware, such as PCs, servers, peripherals, and other IT applications (Interoperability Standards Advisory, 2017). Exports can also be required to use the information provided above.

c. Why the data interchange standard is significant is because it guarantees the patient's information is safe when to and from health care departments and organizations.

d. The Data Interchange Standard applies to the data elements listed and the Midtown Family Clinic EHR system because it will permit simplified processes and quicker correspondences between departments and offices.

2. External Organization #2 – Health Protection Suppliers

a. Health Level Seven (HL7) Standard

This standard enables healthcare organizations to utilize standard informing configuration to simplify sharing communication of medication and transferring information imaging to external offices (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, n.d.).Various organizations are communicating in various dialects that make issues, so this standard will be utilized to fix this issue extraordinarily this standard is utilized for clinical information informing.

b. Similar to the NCPDP, the data interchange standard requires IT hardware, which is capable of exporting to utilize applications introduced to its gear.

c. The HL7 standard is significant because it encourages the center to share information effectively without utilizing the traditional means (Change Healthcare, n.d.). This standard will lessen the time and enable the healthcare givers to be fast and efficient in providing services to patients.

d. This standard can be utilized to exchange data with insurance agencies concerning the patient by keeping them up with the latest patient's findings.

Dr. Thomas's execution of EHR needs to share information to make his facility's procedures smoother appropriately. To accomplish the sharing information process, the need to share information must be distinguished just as sorts of information to be shared, and information trade principles. Giving Midtown Family Clinic a need to share information empowers them to trade electronic information with other wellbeing associations. Facilities are managing vast information consistently and managing external associations. The Midtown Family Clinic will profit significantly by refreshing the center with more IT hardware to all the more likely store patient's information and ready to share them on EHR frameworks for outside wellbeing associations. The facility will convey and impart information to outside associations, for example, drug stores and protection suppliers, to all the more likely serve patients. Be that as it may, this sharing of data can turn out to be quicker and simpler when the facility receives the two distinguished information exchange benchmarks, HL7, and NCPDP SCRIPT. Sharing patient's information utilizing EHR frameworks will help Dr. Thompson to improve his center.

Due to the urgent need to install Electronic Health Records (EHR) system to increase the productivity and efficiency of Midtown Family Clinic, it is pertinent that the system conforms to Ethical, Legal and Regulatory Policy so as to ensure the safety of patients or any other user and records or other important information. EHR system being a Clinical Decision System (CDS), will always focus on ensuring that the safety of patients is on the check. EHR capability to capture accurate billing information makes it the ultimate solution tool for the Midtown clinic. Sharing between Midtown Family Clinic with other external organizations is useful for all the parties involved. The center is managing vast data consistently, and offering this information to others while utilizing EHR will be advantageous for the patients. For instance, the center will impart information to the stores and health caregivers and, more likely, serve the patient and get quick help without managing a ton of administrative work. A few information components, like Patient Demographics and protection data, can be similar across all the organizations sharing data. However, there are specific data that should be imparted to an explicit association. For the EHR framework to be executed to address the issue to share information from Midtown Family Clinic to drug stores and medical coverage suppliers, the kind of information to be shared must be distinguished. The sorts of information to be shared just as to/from these associations will be recognized in the table below.

Data sharing between Midtown Family Clinic with other external organizations is useful for all the parties involved. The center is managing vast data consistently and offering this

Confidentiality is a major challenge to the Midtown clinic. Like most clinics, doctors take a complete role in handling patient's information. The right to observing confidentiality is by making sure that only authorized personnel have a right to see information (Wager, Lee, & Glaser, 2009). EHR can do less in as much as allowing the information sharing, but the privacy of that information will entirely lie in the hearts of those given permission to check. Measures that can assist in maintaining confidentiality is by sticking to professional ethics. Midtown should strengthen its system with a set of policies, regulation standards, and rules.

Ethical, Legal, and Regulatory Policy Issues play a critical role in ensuring the safety of healthcare information. EHR should follow and conform to each of these policies before installation. Failure to will lead to severe implications that go far as killing the future of Midtown Clinic.