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3-1 Final Project Milestone One: Initiation and Preparation
Southern New Hampshire University
HIM-440: Management of Health Information Services
July 17,2022
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Initiation and Preparation Phase
For forming Gateway Healthcare Systems, St. Catherine’s Medical Center will be
merging with Luke’s Hospital and Hickman Community . The ‘Initiation and Hospital
Preparation Phase’ phase will be highly critical so that the facilities can function in a cohesive
manner and deliver quality services to the public. While working on the phase, some of the key
elements that have been taken into consideration include the issues that could arise for the HIM
department, compliance concerns, cultural issues that could impact quality as well as
productivity and the mission and vision of the facilities. A detailed SWOT analysis has also been
conducted to identify the key variables that may impact the Health Information Management
department of the merged entity.
Summary
The merger of the three health care facilities into a single entity could give rise to a broad
range of issues in the HIM department. After the review of the data of St. Catherine’s Medical
Center, Luke’s Hospital and Hickman Community Hospital, some of the main issues that have
been identified are the limited staff diversity and the la of necessary credentials of the staff. ck
Similarly, the department associations in some of the facilities is weak, which could adversely
affect collaboration and teamwork. The other elements that are lack within the organizations
include proper communication, training and development opportunities for the staff members,
etc.
