Health Management Information

Health Management Information

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Health Management Information

Health information relates to the medical history of a patient, such as diagnoses, outcomes, procedures, and signs. Health Information Management (HIM) involves accessing, evaluating, and securing traditional and digital health data to facilitate the quality care of patients (Cheburet & Odhiambo, 2016).

A 1.

The primary issue that needs assessment in the HIM workflow is the billing and coding department. This is because the location of the department is in a different facility from the clinic and hospital. The distance results in many issues such as record completeness, the proper place of patient records, and records transportation.

Health Information Management staff may be unable to deal with patient charts and face issues when releasing information requests to clients, attorneys, and auditors. This arises when there is missing or incomplete documentation. Also, the misuse of the copy and forward or paste functions of EHR and recording of the patient’s information in illegible handwriting. This comprises the quality of patient care due to delays in treatment because the nurse cannot answer any question regarding the health of the patient. Auditors can only assess the quality of care when the patient’s information is available. Coding should not be done before chart analysis to ensure all the patient activity is reported and captured appropriately. There is a focus on the production of and timely and accurate to demonstrate inpatient care with much effort on the improvement of clinical documentation through coding. Besides, sometimes patient’s records are taken by the wrong facilities, and thus the right people cannot access the information leading to poor quality of health care (Kruk et al. 2018). Therefore, it is vital to develop a systematic and standardized technique of keeping patients’ records and describe the medical approach that governs the use and collection of medical information. Health systems that have a plan of implementing Electronic Health Records (ERH) have many concerns to take into considerations (Mather, A. A. 2019). Health Information Technology is a significant software investment, and hospitals should do more in-depth research on which product to select.

A 2.

One of the concerns is that the staff is maybe resistant to change. The Health Information Management staff operating EHR may not be flexible to change. The team responsible for chart analysis, billing, and coding may feel that adopting EHR could result in financial burden when the system is implemented, and consume a lot of time to be active and easy to remember. The resistance to change from the HIM department could influence other departments to decline the adoption of an EHR system (Krousel-Wood et al. 2018). Besides, the staff is very familiar with paper records that it becomes so hard to adopt electronic records. Also, Health Information Management could argue that the adoption of the EHR system is likely to interfere with the workflow and result in errors because of the new technology knowledge with the system. Adoption of EHR is expected to result in a loss of jobs as the use of technology replaces the human workforce.

To deal with the issues that could arise due to EHR, hospital management should understand the exact nature of employees’ resistance. Employees do not resist the technological change but social change that comes along. Strength originates from the staffs’ attitudes and blind spots because of their preoccupation with the new technical ideas. To deal with the views, the management should handle the team constructively by setting new performance standards and encourage positive thinking. Allowing staff participation is not active.

A 3.

The primary functional needs of health professionals operating a HIMS relate to the processing of Releasing of Information (ROI) requests. As with coding and billing, the separate location of records makes it difficult to accurately and timely process ROI requests. Billing and coding with paper charts are time-consuming, inaccurate, and demanding. Besides, there is a high demand by many sources, such as patients and clinicians who want to access patient records. Staff needs to quickly access and reply to the ROI request. Although implementing EHR does not eradicate the need, it provides an efficient process.

A 4.

EHR systems provide many benefits and abilities than using paper medical records. However, privacy and security issues with other legal ramifications raise the alarm and pose risks (Ratwani et al., 2019). The laws and rules regarding security and privacy of patient’s medical information are the same, whether it is a paper medical record or electronic medical record. Medical information should be private and only accessible to people authorized to do so. EHRs have more security than paper medical records as they can be traced directly to each person’s history and the staff accessing the information. With paper records, it is only under direct supervision and control that a person can access the information quickly.

However, there is no direct way of tracking the person accessing the information. EHRs give centralized access to information that is available anytime to several departments. The ability enables the addressing accuracy and creates an efficient and quick means of tracking record updates and access. The legal issues affecting EHRs are extensive and are legal records, just like paper medical records. Other aspects that relate to EHRs include record access and who accesses them. Portals belonging to patients provide many advantages but still pose many questions concerning their access ( Kaipio 2020).

B 1.

The critical elements of an ERH project plan include;

Assessment – Involves selection of the project team, selection of a project charter, and creation of a budget. Write down the current office workflows. The workflows include nurses, support staff, care providers, coding, transcription, check-ins, and billing, and assessing of the hospital space.

Planning– involves the development of timelines, setting of deliverables and milestones, creation of communication plans, selection of EHR vendors, discussion of EHR’s requirements, searching for potential vendors, and finally contacting them.

Selection– Entails reassessing the workflow of the office, offering demonstration with the committee that selects vendors, selecting of the vendor by the committee, negotiating the signing of a contract by the vendors, training of the staff based on the vendor’s requirements, creating a Go-live plan, installing EHR system that converts data from paper records, and finally going live (Fulcher 2017).

B 2.

Making the right decisions concerning the selection of the project team contributes mainly to the success of the project (Katuu, 2019). The team members design the flow of the system, structure, and templates for creating and testing the software, coding of interfaces and arrangements, and ensure the accuracy of the setup before it goes live. Besides, the project team trains other users on the use of the system. An ERH project team has two central personnel; a clinical officer and a project manager. The clinical champion establishes the foundation of the ERH plan and carries out significant decisions regarding the selection and implementation of the best ERH system. The project manager facilitates and coordinates all activities to ensure completion of all practice tasks and vendors on time and accurately (Evans, 2016). Some members prioritize and evaluate all the requirements of the ERH system. The team requires people who know to represent the system need for nurses, accountants, physicians, medical assistants, and receptionists. Therefore, to come up with a project team, selecting interdisciplinary people who have the right mix of skills and knowledge will lead to a successful implementation of the ERH project plan. The individuals will ensure all levels and areas of the organization are adequately represented in the development of the action plan.

B 3.

There is many advantages of adopting EHR and exist in three groups; (Heart 2017) improvement of patient care, cost, and efficiency containment. Improving the patient’s care quality is greatly facilitated by EHR as information is readily available to healthcare service providers. The available records give more evidence-based treatment plans of a patient, and making decisions concerning patients is created on time. The ability to have patient’s data recorded on time increases accuracy, and documents produced have detailed information. Besides, it establishes aa point of reference for the patient’s medical history.

C 1.

The cost-benefit analysis helps focus on the vendor selection process through the following ways; when a health care facility a system for creation and maintenance of EHR, carrying out a cost-benefit analysis gives the hospital a budget framework (Svensson 2017). Therefore, the organization evaluates the amount required to implement the new EHR system and determine the add-ons and functionalities considered to be priorities by the facility.

C 2.

Differences between RFI and RFP

C 2 (a)

Hospital management should prefer RFP over RFI. Issuing suppliers with RFI is rarely used today because the information is available online. The vendors may only send brochures, something that can be found online, and their standard pricing, which is unnecessary without concentrating on the particular needs of the client. Preparing a structured response is money and time-consuming process, and thus skipping the process is excellent.

C 2 (b)

However, the client could use both RFI and RFP if they cannot access the information needed online, and request the vendors to send the data through RFI. RFP is vital because vendors can demonstrate their technical expertise by showing their knowledge, experience, and skills, and only the competent ones are selected, making the organization move faster in the implementation of the project.

C 3.

Elements of RFP

Organizational Overview- includes the mission and the project, which will provide the suppliers with background information of the company (Rajbhoj et al., February).

Target audience- Describe the size of the audience, not omitting their technical requirements, and how the vendors will interact with the organization during the project.

Goals of the project- identifying the project goals will enable the vendor to know the importance of the project to meet the needs of the audience, and generally, the company’s objectives.

Operational requirements- Outline all the guidelines of the work such as deadlines, requirements of billing, what the company expects on evaluating and testing in the process of development, security features, the ability of expansion, and the maximum price the vendor should bid within.

Technical requirement- Highlights the demands of meeting the operational needs such as software and hardware.

Proposal Format- Highlight all the aspects required in bids of the vendor such as cost per deliverable, stated budget, the roles and responsibilities of staff, description of vendors, timeline charts, and tasks. Describing the elements will enable vendors to give the clients what they want and compare it directly with other vendors.

Request for References- Explain the information required in references, such as the duration of clients, the most preferred types of clients, the required standard of information, and whether the past or current clients.

Proposal Delivery Instructions and Contacts- Highlight the person who should be addressed, the number of copies to be sent, mode of delivery, contact information, and whether the RFP is closed or open.

Proposal Evaluation Timeline- Describe the process of selection and the timeline. Vendors provide feedback with phone calls that facilitate changes made in RFP, making bidders aware of their expectations. Adhering to the selection process gives the vendors information on what they should do. Vendors spent most of their time writing proposals. Therefore, it is essential to manage their expectations, building relationships.

Project Specifications and Deliverables- Evaluate the project’s key components. Identify the needed design and features for every part and the services of support required from the supplier during the development process and launch of the project. Providing more details in this element makes the estimations of cost more accurate. For the aspects with requirements that are not flexible, the client should highlight the objectives and invite proposals to offer solutions.

Licensing and contracts- Describes recurring and one-time costs and business risk in case a vendor is unable to run the project.

Market information- Requests the vendor to state their competitors and how they are better than them.

C 4.

To maintain a good relationship with the vendors, the organization should state its organizational goals and objective so that the vendors can design the system in a way that works towards reaching the overall goal (Church et al., 2019). Besides, having a vendor manager is essential as it makes the person responsible for all communications involving delivery and inventory.

References

Cheburet, S. K., & Odhiambo-Otieno, G. W. (2016). Process factors influencing data quality of routine health management information system: the case of Uasin Gishu County Referral Hospital, Kenya. Int Res J Public Environ Heal, 3, 6.

Evans, R. S. (2016). Electronic health records: then, now, and in the future. Yearbook of medical informatics, 25(S 01), S48-S61.

Fulcher, K. H., Smith, K. L., Sanchez, E. R., Ames, A. J., & Meixner, C. (2017). Return of the Pig: Standards for Learning Improvement. Research & Practice in Assessment, 11, 10-40.

Heart, T., Ben-Assuli, O., & Shabtai, I. (2017). A review of PHR, EMR, and EHR integration: A more personalized healthcare and public health policy. Health Policy and Technology, 6(1), 20-25.

Katuu, S. (2019). Health Information Systems, eHealth Strategy, and the Management of Health Records: The Quest to Transform South Africa’s Public Health Sector. In Healthcare Policy and Reform: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications (pp. 493-517). IGI Global.

Kaipio, J., Kuusisto, A., Hyppönen, H., Heponiemi, T., & Lääveri, T. (2020). Physicians’ and nurses’ experiences on EHR usability: Comparison between the professional groups by employment sector and system brand. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 134, 104018.

Carousel-Wood, M., McCoy, A. B., Ahia, C., Holt, E. W., Trapani, D. N., Luo, Q., … & Milani, R. V. (2018). Implementing electronic health records (EHRs): health care provider perceptions before and after the transition from a local basic EHR to a comprehensive commercial EHR. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 25(6), 618-626.

Kruk, M. E., Gage, A. D., Joseph, N. T., Danaei, G., García-Saisó, S., & Salomon, J. A. (2018). Mortality due to low-quality health systems in the universal health coverage era: a systematic analysis of amenable deaths in 137 countries. The Lancet, 392(10160), 2203-2212.

Kwon, D., Hodkiewicz, M. R., Fan, J., Shibutani, T., & Pecht, M. G. (2016). IoT-based prognostics and systems health management for industrial applications. IEEE Access, 4, 3659-3670.

Mather, A. A. (2019). Nurses’ Experiences of using Electronic Health Records in a Public Health Care Facility: Middle East, Qatar.

Ratwani, R. M., Reider, J., & Singh, H. (2019). A decade of health information technology usability challenges and the path forward. Jama, 321(8), 743-744.

Rajbhoj, A., Nistala, P., Kulkarni, V., & Ganesan, G. (2019, February). An RFP System for Generating Response to a Request for Proposal. In Proceedings of the 12th Innovations on Software Engineering Conference (formerly known as India Software Engineering Conference) (pp. 1-9).

Svensson, L. E. (2017). Cost-benefit analysis of leaning against the wind. Journal of Monetary Economics, 90, 193-213.