Assessing THE Value OF Health IT Investment PDF

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The essay demonstrate the benefits of information technology investments in health care...

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Running head: ASSESSING THE VALUE OF HEALTH IT INVESTMENT

Assessing the Value of Health IT Investment Student’s Name: Institutional Affiliation:

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Introduction In the last few decades, the health sector has experienced significant growth in the use of information technology. Different functions have been replaced with computers with the aim of ensuring there are efficiency and effectiveness in offering health care services. There are different factors in the health care which determining the quality of services offer to the patient by the medical centre. Firstly, information sharing between the clinicians and physicians is one of the functions of information technology which are adding value to the nature and quality of services offered. It occurs where clinicians have the ability to access the patients’ history during hence use the information to treat the current illnesses[ CITATION Sow16 \l 1033 ]. Secondly, communication is one of the valued which information technology has managed to offer to the users. Through information technology, medical centres have the ability to connect with some of their patients hence making it possible to share medical result and information which will help the patients in recovering or increasing health literacy. Southeast Medical Center is one of the health care providers who have increasing adopted information technology in different functions as a way of improving organization effectiveness in services they offer. The purpose of this case study is to identify some of the alternatives which can be integrated into the existing application and propose a solution which will ensure important changes are made in the system. Additionally, recommendations will be made on the Epic applications at Southeast’s investment and ensure there is an expansion of the data warehouse. Background

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There are different information technology applications which were introduced at Southeast Medical Centre after the senior management made a decision. The applications were developed and maintained by McKesson which a technology company is dealing with different health applications. Some of the applications which they were contracted to introduce include ED tracking system which is a system meant to track the movement of the patients from the emergency room to different phases which they are taken through. Through the system, they hospital can understand services which were offered to the patients[ CITATION Wag13 \l 1033 ]. The second application is the bar code technology which is used in the pharmacy to administer medication. Southeast investment offers different services to the patients, and one of essential functions are the pharmacy[ CITATION Wag13 \l 1033 ]. The use of bar code technology has ensured effectiveness in the administration of the medication of medication where the hospital ensure the amount of dispensed medicine is known hence able to know the stock in the pharmacy. Additionally, the system help in accountability was the data about the sold stock is determined by analyzing the information. McKesson also developed a number of administration application to aid in running the organization. Some of the administration applications which were implemented by McKesson include operative scheduling applications. The application was meant to help the management in different departments to schedule activities such as surgical procedure so that they can be able to avoid taking operations which are more that what the hospital can accommodate in a given period. Other departments which used the application are the inpatients and outpatients departments where they ensure the number space is available before taking patients. Additionally, the administration used the application to schedule duties to the staff members such as the clinicians, physicians, and nurses.

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The material management system is another system which was developed by McKesson to aid in the management of materials in Southeast Medical Centre. The application ensures there adequate materials for use by the staff member. Additionally, it allowed the materials the staff members to indicate some of the materials which they have used. Clinical Repository system aided the organization in was developed to aid the clinicians in understanding the patients’ information. This system was able to present all the customer information in a systematic manner[ CITATION Wag13 \l 1033 ]. Through the presentation, clinicians would have been able to enter and retrieve information from the database shared by different clinicians.

The applications which were installed by McKesson were able to solve different problems at Southeast Medical Centre. However, the applications were not effective to satisfy the needs of all the departments and their functions[ CITATION Wag13 \l 1033 ]. There was a need to come up with other applications which would solve the problems created by McKesson applications in the organization. Lack of well-structured database was a major problem, and there was a need to expand the data warehouse so that it can be able to handle information from different systems. Alternatives Explored

To have effectiveness in the systems in the information technology systems which were adapted by Southeast Medical Centre, there are some of the factors which need to be addressed. The issue of cost is a major issue which would appear in finding the solution to the issues. Although there are effective alternatives for Southeast Information system, the cost of implementing them cannot be possible at the medical center. Firstly, the alternative systems which will need improvement are the EasyDoc EHR which meant to be used by the clinicians to view information relating to different inpatients and outpatient’s records were not effective. The ability

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to interface with different applications is one of the functions of EasyDoc EHR. Through the integration, the clinicians would be able to access information regarding different factors in the organization in different formats[ CITATION Wol14 \l 1033 ]. The alternative for EasyDoc EHR is the Epic Ambulatory Care EHR. There have been major changes in the payment reforms in the medical sector, and through this Epic EHR, the hospital will be able to keep up with the reforms and serve the patients in more effective and way. EasyDoc has been frustrating the clinicians were unable to integrate the inpatients and outpatients EHR information. This means that the clinicians are forced to look at the patients’ information in the two systems.

Even though the replacement will introduce a single EHR, the cost is an important issue in the development of information technology systems. For example, the total ownership of replacing the ambulatory EHR and some of the practice management system will require total ownership cost of about $30 million[ CITATION Wol14 \l 1033 ]. Some of the components which resulted in such high cost of replacement are the inclusion of the staff that will be needed to implement the system. The solution to reducing the cost is to ensure the Southeast staffs are trained on the implementation of cost to reduce the cost. Additionally, if the clinical products which were installed by McKesson are replaced this will cost the hospital additional $90 million. The medical centre may be willing to embrace this technology, but considering the cost, it cannot be able to raise that amount.

Proposed Solution Storage space is a major component in every system. The database is the information technology technique which is used to store information from different sources and allow the information to be accessed by the different system user. The effectiveness of an information technology system

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depends highly on the architecture and structure of a database. The fact that EasyDoc was not able to interface with the clinical applications means that the system was not able to retrieve information needed by the clinicians from the database and hence, the clinicians cannot analyze the information to come up with the effective conclusion. There is a need to replace the pharmacy information system further so that the system can be able to make orders from different suppliers automatically. Linking the pharmacy information system with the supplier's system will ensure there is enough medicine in the hospital when needed. This can be done by ensuring the suppliers have the ability to see the medicine which the Southeast Medical Center is running out of and supply it even before the procurement take the records of the materials needed in the organization. Through this process, the hospital will ensure all their four branches are well-supplied with medicine, and they do not incur storage costs[ CITATION Wag13 \l 1033 ]. Through effective replacement of the system with Epic systems, the hospital will be able to monitor the most used drugs and ensure they make it available at all time. Ensuring there is effectiveness in the organization comprise not only the services related efficiency, but also ethics. Southeast Medical Center needs to ensure the patient's health information is protected from access by unauthorized users[ CITATION Wol14 \l 1033 ]. The applications need to be able to track the system user path so that in the case of any issues or bleach of codes of the hospital it can be easy to track the users. Even though the Epic EHR will be able to access both the inpatients and outpatients system at the same time, the hospital can reduce the cost of replacement by upgrading the existing system to become one system[ CITATION Sow16 \l 1033 ]. Communication is an important factor at

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Southeast. The system which will be developed need to be able to allow the patients and the community providers to access the system and at the same time ensure there is security. The system nee to replace the HIE which is being used currently, so that it can be able to accommodate the continuity of care documents which will be needed by clinicians in different activities.

The proposed solution for the improvement of HIE is expansion in the data warehouse so that it can be able to handle more health documents and at the same time be able to accommodate large traffic of users. The system will need to allow the patients access some of their information such as the lab results, x-rays result, and medication[ CITATION Sow16 \l 1033 ]. This kind of information will require large storage space because the documentation will be continuous.

Percentage of patients who are able to receive and send information currently using HIE Percentage of patients who are NOT able to receive and send information currently using HIE

Fig 1: Pie chart indicating the current use of HIE in percentage

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By increasing the number of patients who can access the information to 95% which is the objective if the system, the data warehouse will need to be increased by about 60%. This will accommodate the number of health documents which will be shared by the hospital and the local community[ CITATION Wol14 \l 1033 ]. This will ensure effectiveness in the system and efficiency in access to information.

Recommendations The development of technology has seen different organizations have a change in ways of doing things. The software developers are some of the people who contribute in the achievements of the organization system. McKesson investors have been working with Southeast Medical Centre for some time, and during this time, little changes have been seen regarding the improvement of the system to handle the increasing population and changes in reforms. I would recommend that to ensure the applications can change with the external and internal changes of the hospital; I would recommend Epic to develop Southeast information technology system. According to the 2015 report on the development of the information system, it indicated that Epic EHR market share is currently at 47.7% compared to McKesson which is at 3.7%. The report also compared different factors which the Epic EHR system has that will increase the advantage to the organization.

I would also like to recommend the Southeast management to ensure the information system is integrated into all the departments so that there is effectiveness in the organization's activities. Additionally, the management needs to ensure there are high skilled personals who will be maintaining the database to ensure all the documents store are safe and the database is in good state.

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·Conclusions Information technology is impacting the health sector in a huge way. Different companies have developed different systems in efforts of solving related problems in the sector. The Southeast medical center has been using the McKesson products, and they would need to change to improve efficiency. Even though there are different alternatives to enhance the system, the cost of replacing to Epic applications is a major challenge. I would recommend the medical centre to use Epic applications because they have the largest market share and they have the ability to upgrade their systems.

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Reference Sewer, V. E., Duffy, J. A., & Kohers, G. (2016). Benchmarking for hospitals: Achieving best-inclass performance without having to reinvent the wheel. Milwaukee, Wis: ASQ Quality Press. Wager, K. A., Lee, F. W., & Glaser, J. P. (2013). Health care information systems: A practical approach for health care management. Wolper, L. F. (2014). Health care administration: Planning, implementing, and managing organized delivery systems. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers....