check the file

· Executive Summary

· Summary of Recommendation

With the vision of Panther Memorial Hospital in mind and their patients’ ease of accessibility to their health plans we recommend the development and implementation of a patient portal system constructed through the organization’s internal resources. From our feasibility matrix we found that weighted score of an internally created patient portal is higher than a commercial bought one; 89.25 vs 63.75. Per the finance department, this patient portal system is projected to yield a positive return of $400,000 annually over a 10 year lifespan with a payback of 4 years. There will be considerable savings in administrative costs, office supplies, and employee wages due to less paperwork and less face-to-face interaction at the hospital’s office; savings are projected to be 50%. Not only does Panther Memorial Hospital save in cost of operations but their quality of care is also improved for their patients through faster and more efficient management of care. The most positive outcome of this patient portal is the improvement of care and satisfaction for the patients, increase revenue, and a decrease in administrative cost.

· Summary of Problems, Opportunities, and Directives

The problems associated with patient to healthcare provider and patient to hospital hinders the fluidity of care for the patient. Paying medical bills through mail slows the collection of service render for the organization and may also cause problems if lost through the mailing process. Getting in touch with your primary care doctor when questions and concerns arise will have to go through a hospital operator lowering quality of care. Scheduling appointment will have to been done through office visits or by phone which problems may arise through miscommunication between patient and loss of written appointment dates. To view the results to tests, examinations, and procedures are limited to request and face-to-face communication with a healthcare provider. Refilling prescriptions is to slow due to the process of going to the hospital and having the provider write out another prescription. Personal insurance updates and adjust are slow and hinder due to the process of changing it at the administrative desk or through the hospital operator. Personal reminder are to slow through mail and phone which could get lost or missed. Registration and patient history are hard to obtain and may cause confusion for the patient of their plan of care. With all of these problems associated with patient to provider and patient to hospital there are opportunities for improvement through the creation of a patient portal system. The patient portal system will be a web-based applications that enables patients to access important information, conduct transactions of payment, and communicate with healthcare providers.

· Brief Statement of System Improvement Objectives

We established that some of our system objectives would be decreasing the time required for physicians to explain results by 30%, decreasing by 15% the time a patient waits in line for their prescriptions, and increasing phone/tablet use to access portal by 35%. The system constraints we would face would be not accepting cash or checks, there would be a decrease in personal communication with patients, and no exceptions for our patients in booking appointments.

· Brief Explanation of Report Contents

· Final Conclusion

After research we find it a must for Panther Memorial to implement a patient portal system. This system will allow patients to have an interactive role in their care and partake in preventative medicine, which will increase overall wellness of patients and decrease unnecessary costs for all parties involved. To add to these savings, Panther Memorial will also receive a 12.27% return on investment annually. If Panther Memorial does not implement this service, we are only doing ourselves a disservice. We hope you take serious consideration to the benefits this project will have to our organization.

· Patient Portal Project Charter

· Introduction

While Panther Memorial has implemented an electronic medical record (EMR), our patients have never been provided with a patient portal. Patient portals are web-based applications that enable patients to access information, conduct transactions such as registration and payments, and communicate with their caregivers. This project will determine the most appropriate action regarding the implementation of a patient portal at Panther Memorial Hospital.

· Vision

With the implementation of an EMR, Panther Memorial now has the capability to provide patients with access to their information such (i.e. lab results), to reengineer clinical and business processes under a patient self-service model (i.e. registration), and provide another avenue for communication with patients (i.e. secure patient/physician inbox). The vision is to create a patient portal that will become the cornerstone of any significant online activity with our patients.

· Objectives

The objectives of the project are:

· Provide major segments of portal functionality such as accessing personal medical information, collecting payments, and enabling patient/physician communication.

· Enhance customer service to our patients.

· Deliver relevant personal health information via secure methods

· Enhance patient or family member’s experience with their encounter

· Enhance and improve overall patient safety and quality of care.

· Provide information access, transparency, portability

· Enhance the Panther Memorial brand

· Support our image as a leading health care provider

· Provide a consistent “look & feel” with our existing hospital web site

· Support patient portal access on mobile devices, such as smart phones and tablets.

· Ensure that the portal supports social media elements such video, chat, communities, patient groups, etc.

· Ensure that the portal architecture includes the security and access controls to protect against unauthorized access and supports HIPAA, PHI, and IT security requirements.

· Scope

The scope of this project includes all online patient activities and interactions. This project will not examine any needs of the employee for an employee self-service portal or intranet. Additionally, the project will not include a redesign of the hospital’s public website other than modifications needed for integration with a patient portal solution.

· Constraints

The project is constrained by the following:

· The solution must integrate with our current EMR system.

· The capital budget for this initiative is $2m.

· The proposed solution should support a wide range of web browsers and mobile devices.

· The proposed solution must fit our overall technical architecture and infrastructure standards.

· Assumptions

The following assumptions have been made:

· The portal will provide a single vehicle for access various information and processes within our hospital.

· The portal will have a quality “look and feel” consistent with other high end internet web sites.

· The portal will provide non-IT staff with self-service capabilities to manage web pages.

· Deliverables

The project team will deliver a system proposal. The system proposal shall include an executive summary, this charter, system improvement objectives, business requirements including 10 use cases (diagram & narrative) and related activity diagrams, candidate/feasibility system matrix, and final recommendation.

Each use cases will document the requirements for different segments of functionality and will not repeat a similar scenario. For instance if scheduling an appointment is documented, then cancelling an appointment will not be submitted as another use case. Instead the project team will choose another major feature area to document such as viewing lab results. For each of the 10 use cases, an activity diagram will also be constructed and submitted.

· Reporting & Project Team

A system proposal for a patient portal will be delivered to the executive sponsor, Dale Steber, via the D2L dropbox. Any clarification or questions regarding this project will be submitted to the executive sponsor.

Each of the project teams will consist of 5 members (1 team will have 6) with one member designated as the project lead. Project team rosters will be submitted by February 26th.

· Schedule

The results of this analysis and a formal presentation will be submitted on May 7th. The presentation will be a maximum of 15 minutes long with additional time for questions and answers immediately following. Peer evaluations are due May 14th.

· Electronic Packaging

Each group will submit to one team member’s dropbox:

· A Word document containing the executive summary, charter, system improvement objectives, 8 use case narratives, feasibility matrix, and final recommendation.

· One or more Visio documents containing the use case diagram and the 8 activity diagrams.

· Print Packaging

Each team will provide one print copy of their work at the beginning of class on the day it is due. Hard copies of any presentation materials will also be submitted at the formal presentation.

· Peer Evaluations

Each team member will submit the peer evaluation form found on D2L. The point of this form is to provide feedback to me concerning the work of your teammates. Your feedback will be confidential. Grades will be adjusted accordingly to the feedback from the evaluation forms. Each student should submit the peer evaluation to their dropbox in D2L.

· System Improvement Objectives

· Use Case Diagram

· Narratives and Activity Diagrams

· Pay Medical Bill

· Narrative

· Activity Diagram

· Pay Medical Bill