Week 4 Project: System Implementation
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Week 4 Project: System Implementation
Site Preparation
The Third Place Homecare (TPH) believes that to provide high-quality care for the frail elder, individuals living with disabilities, and those transitioning from primary care, the supportive equipment and services must follow proper documentation. The facility believes that shifting to electronic health records (EHR) must be supported by other hardware installed around the facility at strategic locations. EHR has come a long way to enable healthcare providers to access the patient’s information electronically (Ozanich & Shanholtzer, 2015). TPH’s Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) partner and the Information Technology (IT) personnel’s offices will be located at places where higher levels of privacy will be provided. Hence, they will be located on the last floor of the building. System servers will also be installed on this floor. The servers will have both wireless and wired connections to enhance the convenience of accessing them.
TPH has decided that all clinical patient rooms will have printers installed in them to reduce the time required for providers to print materials. Each room will also have a desktop to avoid the need for providers to move around with materials with EHR information that could otherwise be accessed electronically. There is a boardroom where physicians and nurses could convene for daily work briefings. The boardroom will be next to the chief nursing officer (CNO) to ensure easier facilitation of nursing activities. CNO’s officer will also have a printer, a computer, and a sub-server to follow up the progress of patients and activities of nurses around the facility. Each room within the facility will have a camera to monitor support activities. Site planning seems ideal in the face of the growing utilization of health information to improve care delivery (Ozanich & Shanholtzer, 2015). TPH seems to be on the right path as it relates to the integration of EHR.
User Preparation
An effective system implementation process demands that user acceptance testing is performed. This is premised on the assumption that while the organization might be charged with the responsibility of installing systems, users will interact with them throughout their lifespan and existence of the facility. Stair and Reynolds (2012) argued that soliciting user acceptance is the only way the benefits of the new systems could indeed be realized (p.429). It implies that any potential glitches would be solved at this point easily. With this in mind, TPH recognizes that user preparation will be the most stressful and chaotic part of system implementation. Nevertheless, it has adequately prepared itself to counter any bottlenecks that might emerge. It is these reasons that user preparation has become an important facet and of great focus to the facility.
The initial phase of building the system, vendors helped TPH to develop a user manual. This aimed at creating a deeper understanding of the system functioning and how users can operate it. This manual also provides strategies for solving basic problems that users could encounter. The system has Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) to enable users to navigate possible resolutions to various issues. Training regarding the operation of the new system was provided to ensure users have the skills of utilizing it. With all these in place, the last part of user preparation TPH plans to have just before full implementation is conducting a workshop where developers will take the staff through the systems. This will enable them to interact with the new system before they actually start to use it. Any concerns users might have would be addressed at this point.
Installing Hardware and Software
Regardless of the hardware and software setup pursued, TPH has the goal of ensuring a seamless synchronization of hardware and software to give the best in its EHR system. The cameras and computers installed in all clinical rooms will ensure a patient’s personal data is relayed to the IT office, who will be responsible for updating and maintaining the system. The current patient data held by the facility will be configured to the new EHR system. The reason why the IT officer’s station will be strategically located with the facility is to ensure zero-rated disturbances from other activities and to ensure a higher level of monitoring. Customization of the software will be done online by the service provider, which will be downloaded automatically and maintained by the IT personnel. System testing will be guided by the hardware and software manuals from the developers. Any updates of the hardware or software shall be sent to the organization’s email from developers.
References
Ozanich, G., & Shanholtzer, M. B. (2015). Health Information Management and Technology (1st ed.) New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Stair, R., & Reynolds, G. (2012). Fundamentals of information systems (7th ed.). Boston, Massachusetts: Cengage Learning.