The Importance Of Vendor Management In Healthcare Organizations

This case analysis of Stanford’s Hospital and Clinics (SHC) electronic medical record (EMR) system implementation will focus on how the healthcare organization focused on resolving a problem to meet regulatory pressures and responded to an opportunity to create operational efficiency, by capitalizing on the use of information technology to help reduce costs. We will discuss the organization’s IT problems, opportunities, and the alternatives available to address each. We will summarize an analysis of potential alternatives including the organization’s EMR system of choice and conclude with a recommendation to the Board on how to rollout the new system.

As the healthcare system prepares to select a outsource company as its vendor for this project, what types of information should it give to and gather from each vendor under consideration?

Healthcare technology has grown and evolved over time. With the conversion to electronic medical records and the creation of social media just to name a few, ensuring patient privacy is of the utmost importance for healthcare facilities in this day and age. In order for an organization to avoid hefty fines, it is imperative that a healthcare administrator maintains compliance with the standards and regulations associated with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). This paper will provide a summary

To remain in compliance with HIPPA and HITECH, security planning is essential for data backup and recovery. Assessing risks to determine the potential downfalls of any health information system is essential. Once those risks are identified, policies and procedures can be created, as well as implemented and enforced to ensure a safety culture. For examples, an organization will have a policy on the appropriated downtime procedure at their facility. This policy will ensure adequate details on the proper procedures, ensuring staff feel confident. By performing downtime procedures, the organization is staying compliant with regulations and ensuring a safe and easy data backup and recovery plan (Hawkins, 2013).

Regulation placed upon the healthcare system only seek to improve safety and security of the patients we care for. The enactment of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) and the enactment of Meaningful Use Act the United States government has set strict regulations on the security of health information and has allotted for stricter penalties for non-compliance. The advancement of electronic health record (EHR) systems has brought greater fluidity and compliance with healthcare but has also brought greater security risk of protected information. In order to ensure compliance with government standards organizations must adapt

Planning is the most critical part of the organization’s information management process and requires the collective involvement of all employees of the hospital. Therefore, staff and licensed independent practitioners, selected by the hospital, should participate in the assessment, selection, integration, and use of information management systems for the delivery of care, treatment, and services.

Health Information Managers often deal with liability in Healthcare institutions. Liability gives healthcare providers anxiety. This could cause damage to properties, party’s rights and reputations to Health institutions. Each healthcare institution has levels of relationships that

During this research, there has been a collection of data that had been connected to the instances of HIPAA violations within the United States. There are various cases that have been reported through patients and employees where very personal medical information has been exposed unlawfully for personal gain. These cases have not only put a company at reputational risk. But these cases can also place a patient and or healthcare company in a terrible financial stipulation. This thesis will include a series of charts and tables that describe the fluctuation of such cases involving different examples of HIPAA violations. Not only will there be data of these instances but there will be illustrations of how both patients and healthcare employees exemplify HIPAA violations. These cases will be verified from an external and internal evaluation. Suggestive protocol will be demonstrated to guide one along to ensure the possibility of another case of HIPAA violation is prevented. Protocols and examples are being credited by diverse information.

The breach of patients’ confidential information does not only jeopardize our reputation and reduce the public trust in our organization, it could also lead to severe financial consequences. Under HIPAA law, if an organization is found guilty of unauthorized disclosure of patient medical record, they could face prison time harsh privacy violation penalty. We are sure that none of us want this to happen to our organization. So how can we prevent medical record security leak and better protect our patients’ privacy while also providing the best care possible to all our patients? The following guidelines and

In efforts to strengthen HIPAA compliance, audits are being performed more frequently (Solove, 2013). In order to improve compliance among healthcare-related facilities and companies, it is suggested that they adhere to risk assessments, continue security incident planning, enhance employee training, and continue updating security and privacy policies and procedures (Solove, 2013). It was reported in 2013 that 52% of patient information breaches were due to data theft, with this increasing number of privacy incidents compliance must continue to be

Leadership in innovation in healthcare is no different, as its initiative is to progress while maintaining strict confidentiality and maintaining an overall safe and trustworthy establishment. Healthcare laws are issued to help safeguard patient information creating a moral medical healthcare environment. Healthcare laws secure patient information and medical history and it has helped against fraudulent practices such as identity theft. Knowledge and practice of such laws strengthen leadership. For example, HIPAA (The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) privacy rule was created as a way to secure patient identifiable healthcare information and limiting its disclosures for legitimate purpose use only. To explain, the HIPAA Privacy Rule is an arrangement of selected models to secure the protection of patients' health records as these guidelines give patients access to their health record and control over how their own health record are utilized and disclosed (2015). In any event, the Privacy Rule addresses a guideline for understanding situations where disclosure can be given without patient consent. For example, court proceedings, insurance billing, and

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

The department of Health and Human Services protects and guides the health and well being of individuals here in America (Thacker, 2014). They fulfill these duties providing Americans with adequate and efficient health and human services and monitoring services designed to increase the efficiency of care in the health system (Thacker, 2014). One of the services being monitored by the department of Health and Human Services is the electronic health record system, which carries private and vital information of patient’s health record enabling all eligible participating health workers access to these records (Thacker, 2014). A breach of the protective health information of patients in a health organization creates chaos as these are against the health insurance portability and accountability (HIPAA) law (Thacker, 2014). Hence, measure will have to be put in place to determine what caused the breach and how to rectify it to ensure the breach never happens again (Thacker, 2014).

The rapid changes in technology over the past few decades has left the healthcare industry ill-prepared to operate in today’s environment. Most substantial protections of sensitive consumer information has come as a result of federal regulation, most notably in 1996 with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and 2009 as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Protection of information in the healthcare industry has lagged behind all other industries, perhaps because the records aren’t financial in nature or sensitive government information. Implementing simple steps for many organizations may be enough to limit the vast majority of breaches, although a layered, comprehensive security approach should be the ultimate goal for companies.

Another alternative is to have an IT system that is integrated into the billing system. It can have several advantages and resolve key issues effecting billing accuracy and timeliness. An important flaw that an IT system will help address is efficiency in the billing process. Currently, billing work can only be submitted once a week and reports take too long to download onto a PM’s computer. With an integrated system, bill processing time is reduced through automation. Since changes in estimates are common, there can be a lot of paperwork submissions that have to go through the proper channels. Automated entry saves time, money, and can be more accurate. Management is able to update POs quickly and easily. Some customers might not be happy with the current system of receiving POs because they quickly become obsolete. With