Case Study - Too Far Ahead of the It Curve Essay

The healthcare industry consists of many strengths and weaknesses during the improvement of patient safety, efficient operations, reduction of medical errors, and ensuring that they provide timely access to all patient information. This will have to still comply with all legal guidelines as they control costs and protect patient privacy. The adoption of advanced information technology is a popular strategy being used in the healthcare industry because it allows their weaknesses to be progressively diminished as they gain and use the opportunities necessary as an analytical tool. This would allow their capabilities to be further developed with the new technologies and processes used as they unify the adoption of IT standards. In order to stay competitive within the healthcare industry, then there must be specific actions and measures that must be taken to ensure a positive outcome. This includes external opportunities to increase the capability of the IT infrastructure in a national environment as the growth of industry standards are met in order to decrease the pressured threats of legal compliance through patient trust and the high cost of IT. The growing recognition of strategic leadership often leads to both improved financial stability and contact accessibility of the system. Some challenges that may occur within the healthcare system may cause issues in a hospital setting because of the centralized society of an organization. This is because of the different visions and

The medical staff has been using “best of breed” systems and has concerns of loss of key functions. However, they agreed to adopt EPIC, an enterprise-wide system designed for maximal integration and continuity of care throughout the continuum. This agreement was reached without any understanding of a potential loss of functionality in the new system, and an assumption the new system will be acceptable to the physicians once installed.

Patton Fuller is a community hospital that has been proudly serving the community since 1975. Patience care is number one, and they thrive to ensure each of their patients experience is as pleasant as possible. Hospitals are under enormous pressure to treat patients in the most effective and efficient way. By leveraging the best IT systems, health organizations provide the type of patient care with the speed and efficiency required by the market. By analyzing Patton Fuller’s IT infrastructure, a determination can be made about the network and the devices supported on it as well. The outcome of the analysis will be used to recommend new

4. What problems under the old system are solved or mitigated by the new system?

Anita Ground also stresses on the huge importance of this planning stage by using a concept of system life cycle. It consists of feasibility study, analysis, design, programming, implementation, and lastly maintenance (Ground, 2011, VA TMS training material). The analysis phase in particular would coincide with what the author Yoshihashi is presenting in figuring out office strategy and researching EHR options. Identification of stakeholders and system requirement would play a critical role in EHR adoption (Ground, 2011). Stakeholders would include patients, family, clinicians, billing, registration, and coding as well as the external users such as Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Bottom line is that the new system being purchased would need to provide meaningful use to the clinic based on the current certification standards.

The health information system being selected is QuaDramed and the hypothetical health care organization selected is rural hospital. QuaDraMed EHR solution provides the accurate, reliable foundation organizations need to link and manage patient records across disparate Information technology (IT) systems in rural hospital. By leveraging the powerful capabilities of QuaDramed’s EHR technology and PatientSecure, organizations can better patient safety and satisfaction, protect patients from medical identity theft, and minimize the risk of insurance card fraud. Organizations can also reduce duplicate healthcare records and overlays in the EHR leading to immediate cost and time saving (QuadraMed Corporation, 2015).

Containing ninety participants, 36% of the respondents were hospital CIOs and I.T. executives, 19% from integrated delivery systems headquarters, 19% from group practices, and 27% from other facilities. Survey results pertained to patient health records, electronic health record (EHR) certification, and other IT issues in healthcare. According to the survey, “81% of respondents said their I.T. budgets will grow, with the most common prediction being growth of 5% to 10%. Implementing electronic health records was the No. 1 software investment priority for the coming year for hospitals, integrated delivery systems and group practices alike.” (CIOs Predict Future Trends, n.d) Interestingly, despite the economy at the time showing signs of a recession, “the vast majority of health care organizations expect their information technology budgets to grow during the next fiscal year, and this growth is driven primarily by a need to improve access to information for clinicians, the survey shows.” (CIOs Predict Future Trends, n.d) This improved access to information can be applied to patients as well, as the push towards cloud storage and record/test results access alleviates the need to wait, call, and require record searches from the physician’s staff. On the subject of streamlining access to the implementation to patient EHRs, 19% of

A significant, impactful trend on healthcare organizations (HCOs) is the implementation of technology-based information systems (IS). The systems consist of hardware and software used in gathering and processing data that supports the provision of patient care. There are administrative systems, which have been in place for decades and their usefulness are highly recognized. They track services rendered, billing processes used for third party payers and patients, as well as payroll for employees. Administrative systems are essential for the financial component of a business. More recently, the importance of clinical information systems has moved into the spotlight. They are intended to

A legacy system is an important topic to address because of its magnitude within a health care organization. A legacy system can be a health care organization information system, nurse scheduling system, purchasing and inventory control system, admission-discharge-transfer systems, and facility planning system ( ). Any EHR system considered by a health care organization has to take into consideration the compatibility with the legacy systems already used within the facility. One of the most popular EHR platforms is the cloud-hosting services because installation is minimal and the cost is based on the number of embedded applications needed. In the article, " " by talks about how middleware has the opportunity to connect and gather data from different EHR systems once

Currently, the healthcare industry only spends 2% of gross revenues on health information technology, while the banking industry spends upwards of 10%. However, the Veterans Healthcare System is one of the largest integrated systems in the world. One hundred fifty-five hospitals and eight hundred clinics rely on one electronic health system (Gupta & Murtaza, 2009). Implementing information systems in hospitals is more challenging than elsewhere because of the complexity of medical data, data entry problems, security and confidentiality concerns and a general lack of awareness of the benefits of Information Technology (Boonstra et al., 2014). The newly implemented system must be reliable from the onset as patient care does not cease in the meantime. Technology has the potential to streamline current practices and reduce costs, however, hospitals must consider the potential risks and consequences of a poorly implemented project and agree that failure is not an option. Good project planning and management can assure success of Electronic Health Record

The acquisition of an information technology (IT) system by a healthcare organization must incorporate several different concerns. Generally, there is a process by which the organization determines what functions and capabilities are essential for the new IT system to provide. Much of that concern is dictated by specific goals of the organization, its mission, and the operational elements of the organization. Most importantly, the organization must consider the varied interests and needs of all of its stakeholders in relation to the new IT system.

With the rapid growth in technology, many healthcare organizations have embraced the use of healthcare information technologies. As such, the information technology department has various staffs that perform fundamental roles in the information technology-related activities. It ranges from activities of customizing a software to implementing and maintaining a network to ensure effective system backups. In addition, these healthcare information technologies bring about other

Developing healthcare IT requests for proposals (RFPs) can be a daunting task. It is also a critical one institutions must exercise care in making their final selection of a solution vendor to ensure that the needs and requirements of their unique business are adequately addressed (Mayer, 2009). As a result, heavy investments in time are needed to develop the correct detail and also incorporate the input of various stakeholders. Although vendors can contribute to the RFP creation process, it is typically not recommended due to the high likelihood that it will result in bias (Thacker, 2010). It is best that healthcare institutions examine their current platforms, applications, infrastructure and capacity and make determinations one their own regarding any gaps between what their IT environments are today and what they would like to them to be in the future (Mayer, 2009). Goals may include adding or expanding a certain function (i.e., the management of patient records), moving to more robust software applications, improving data security, migrating to newer technologies, or a combination of objectives.

As a member of an organization acquiring a new Picture Archiving Communications Systems (PACS) software, it is imperative to make certain of several vendor challenges that sales representatives won’t address in depth. With PACS applications there are continuous challenges because of the complexity and constant evolving technology in the Imaging sector of health care. Particularly, there are three encounters which I will address that a PACS vendor may not identify the imperfections of their application. Primarily integration capabilities are huge to countless in Imaging, as most PACS software’s struggle to be well matched with the Radiology Information System or the Health Information System. It is essential for the PACS application being purchased have a platform that is compatible with the software’s already within the organization in order for the workflow to be efficient. Another topic vendors tend to breeze over are downtimes and how often they may occur. Although downtimes shouldn’t occur frequently the departments need to be established and up to date on downtime scenarios, which the vendor should provide support for 24/7. In addition the vendor should have solutions in order to make sure the departments are fully functional even during a downtime scenario. Lastly, interoperability concerns are a major factor as healthcare enhances and is improving. Imaging plays the center role to a patient’s continuous care and better outcomes. Configurations

Stryker is a global medical device manufacturing company. The Instruments Division is located in Kalamazoo, Michigan. It was founded by Dr. Homer Stryker, an orthopedic surgeon. Dr. Stryker discovered that certain medical devices were not meeting his patient’s needs. Because of this, Dr. Stryker decided to invent new ones. The devices he invented were successful, and the interest in Dr. Stryker’s products began to grow. As a result, in 1941 he decided to start a company to produce them.