Advantages/Disadvantages for Businesses Implementing Network Convergence Systems

The high cost of healthcare continues to rise and many in the United States are optimistic for health information technology to reduce and improve our current situation. Health IT encompasses a broad array of new technologies designed to manage and share health-related information. When properly implemented, these systems can help coordinate patient care, reduce medical errors, and improve administrative efficiency. Therefore, implementing a Regional Health Information Organization (RHIO) will help the National Health Information Network (NHIN) achieve their goals in improving quality of care for the citizens of the United States. Thus, in order for the health IT to deliver on its promise, several obstacles must be overcome.

Integration will lead to superior diagnoses as doctors will have access to medical records from across the country, enabling them to draw on the diagnoses of other doctors facing similar situations. It will also allow for seamless care as records for the same patients will be instantly accessible and fully up to date wherever they go. The application layer will be standardized, with a consumer-facing mobile and web application and a doctor-facing web portal. While the way care is administered differs from hospital to hospital and clinic to clinic, what a practitioner needs from an IT solution will remain relatively constant.

The future of the telecommunication industry is an exciting future. No longer can these companies depend on telephone service plans to maintain profit. Each company needs to find other avenues, packages and services that can be sold to existing customers while attracting new customers. The companies

The system in place in the office setting is relatively new. However, they have been able to accomplish many beneficial features to optimize patient care. The system is connected to a larger network of providers and hospitals. This integration allowed for steam lined communication

The organization will reap in high sales and production and possible lower costs in employee wages from less workload. The network system will work at a faster pace and if using the voice-over IP system, communication and management costs can be reduced.

Changes in current health care practices, the aging baby-boomer population, and the higher acuity of patients has created a need for change and adaptability with the health care industry. Kaiser is an organization who has shown the ability to continuously change in order to reduce costs while improving efficient quality patient care. The investment on information technology (IT) advancements such as the implantation of electronic health records (EHRs) and use of a patient portal system is one way the organization has shown readiness to meet the health care needs of patients. KP in collaboration with five other healthcare organizations created a Care Connectivity Consortium, enabling secure electronic retrieval of current

The main reason institutions are switching to the new technology of exchanging health information is specifically to reduce costs and help improve health care quality. In this case study that is what San Luis Valley Regional Medical Center wanted exactly, to effortlessly exchange patient’s medical information. San Luis Valley Regional Medical Center which is a rural hospital in Alamosa Colorado is one of the many hospitals and providers that can benefit from this change. In 2004 AHRQ signed a contract to the University of Colorado Health and sciences Center, which later on developed a point-of-care inquiry system for four healthcare organizations in the Denver region. The system allowed emergency room clinicians within the four locations to exchange medical data. They were able to sufficiently and rapidly retrieve and send patient medical histories, x-rays, medication lists, and all problem lists. The AHRQ contract also help started the development of the

One of the challenges would be advances in healthcare technology - there are evidences of Difficulties in implementation of cross-continuum electronic health records, which are mostly attributed to the lack of resources. With the newer reimbursement model, it is essential for an integrated network to have a vast network of information. It should be able to collect, maintain and provide applicable access to administrative, clinical and financial data in order to supervise quality and costs while providing patient-centered care.

We are the only region not supported by a Kaiser owned hospital facility and as a result we service and respond to our members differently than the other regions with how and where our members present for care. This distinct change in business practice requires all of our electronic processes to traverse our network in a distributed hub and spoke model. Our members are not focused on just one or two specific facilities, our member have the ability to go to any location based on need, availability, timeliness, and a half a dozen other factors. With the addition of our two medical specialty centers opening up by the end of 2013, this distributed model becomes even more challenging with respect to facilitating the concept of “any image anywhere”. In response to this service need, our support model for clinical technologies needs to be more strategic than ever. It will require us to be extremely nimble with our services and develop tighter relationships with all of our partners across the region. It is this distinct difference from the other regions that often require a solution in Colorado vastly different that the same technology utilized in California. We have learned from experience over the years that one size does not fit all, and just because it works in California does not necessarily mean it will be a good fit for Colorado. That doesn’t mean we don’t learn from others successes and challenges, but it does mean that we have learned to be more diligent and creative about how and what we deploy and how that technology fits the business

On the other hand, technology also presents the business with some cost effective solutions. R4 our clinical system is linked to each Practice and Head office, ensuring that information is easily accessible and transferrable between. As our acquisitions focuses more towards the north and southwest areas of the country, we have started to trial video conferencing for all field area business

Key use cases that were considered. In the Wisconsin Health Information Network (WHIN), the following key use cases were considered: Information Provider Interface, The Network Switch and the Information User

Five doctor offices have decided to join each of their buildings to a network. With this, each office will have access to each of the other four offices’ information. This would greatly benefit them and their patients, allowing them to pull up a

For a medium-sized urban hospital with 160 beds and 1,500 associates to be able to gain the trust and confidence of patients and compete with mega-hospitals in the healthcare industry, the management of the hospital would have to explore new technologies that would enhance the quality of services and patient care rendered to customers. Further, to ensure that all the departments in the hospitals such as ICUs, mother & baby, emergency services, radiology, oncology, surgery, and operating room (OR) would have to function efficiently and improve the patient experience. New EMR application would improve the security of patient’s information and ensure timely retrieval of medical records such that the quality of diagnosis would be enhanced significantly. As the IT director, it is my responsibility to make sure that the hospital system has a robust IT network that would enable efficient information flow within

The future trends in health care are limitless. From using applications that perform EKG’s to robot-assisted surgery, the rapid expansion of technology applications in health care is astounding. Advancing technology also pushes the boundaries of health care in its ability to integrate health care information. The integration of health care information is critical to the effective, efficient delivery of quality care in a now fragmented health care system. This paper will assess how the internet or any new forms of electronic communication can be used as an external delivery source of communicating patient-specific information, address the impact of distance delivery on health care, how these communication issues impact health care today and

PH’s patchwork IT infrastructure is in critical condition, so it has major IT infrastructure problems. CEO of PH Max Berndt is trying to find the right solution. He has an option to go with monolithic system that will provide consistency across PH’s facilities but may not give doctors enough flexibility or he can choose