Introduction
You already know that the hospital appointed an expert to assist in pinpointing the biggest problems with its IT systems that must be fixed. The consultant sent in his findings after visiting various departments, speaking with personnel, inspecting the software and hardware, and assessing its effectiveness.
Summary of Findings
Comparative Analysis of the Findings and Concerns
The first issue is that the hospital’s computer systems are outdated, and do not offer a suitable environment for the most recent software releases. IM.01.01.01 requires that the organization plans for managing information. This is achieved by ensuring that the appropriate persons guarantee that necessary data and information are efficiently given for patient care, research, teaching, and management at all levels. The second issue was lack of uniformity in the types of software used hence inability to share information seamlessly among users. IM.01.01.03 advocates for the organization to plan for the seamlessness in its information management processes. Failure in this function may disrupt the organization’s information system.
Thirdly, there is lack of an institutional data registry or a local area network. IM.02.01.01 calls for effective safeguarding of health information. Lack of proper patient data protection mechanisms can result in breaches. Fourthly, the hospital lacks a network-based administration database accessible to all departments. IM.02.02.01 mandates the healthcare organization to effectively collect, store and manage patient data in usable formats. The accurate capturing of patient data increases its reliability and integrity. Finally, the hospital needs to simplify the hourly or daily logs to facilitate effective management and retrieval. IM.04.01.01 requires the hospital to maintain accurate health information. The efficiency of all upstream and downstream processes increases accuracy and reliability of health data. Any bottlenecks increases the likelihood of inaccurate capturing of information and data breaches.
The software and technology City Hospital relies on to maintain and distribute patient data is a major source of concern. The latest software releases would assist departmental auditing if they were available on outdated workstations and servers. In other words, City Hospital’s data collection infrastructure needs an upgrade, including its hardware and software. Additionally, an enterprise-wide network is not yet in place at the hospital. As a result of the lack of uniformity in the organization’s software solutions and editions, employees in various sections of the business cannot share data and ideas in a digital medium. This results in departments of the company having to generate the same data in many reports. A system must be chosen to securely store patient data electronically and make it available to authorized parties. These findings raise a red flag because they indicate that City Hospital risks patient data being captured erroneously or disclosed to unauthorized individuals.
Recommendations
To begin with, many medical administrators’ worst fear is that their operations would not be efficient. When a healthcare organization is at peak capability, it may be challenging to monitor all operations to ensure they are functioning correctly (Mills et al., 2021). A solution exists, however, in the form of a centralized system that would enable the hospital to control the activities of all of its clinicians. Consequently, it will be faster to determine the tasks that need to be automated and track its employees’ work in real-time.
Application security becomes paramount in the healthcare industry when dealing with patient’s private health information. Information encryption, transmission, and decryption must adhere to strict guidelines set by the healthcare business (Moore et al., 2019). For medical applications to comply, they must use the proper type of encryption and adhere to the highest data security requirements. Furthermore, any third-party platform utilized to run a healthcare service should be secure, with thorough data security, authentication protocols, and business interruption policies and processes in place.
Finally, patients may gain from deploying innovative technology by receiving high-quality care. Therefore, all of the hospital’s health workers must be trained in the appropriate use of these devices. If not, people can be hesitant to use them or uncertain how to make the most of their capabilities. Offering ongoing training and instruction is one method to solve this difficulty (Morrison et al., 2019). The hospital may either accomplish this internally or by employing a third-party trainer. This allows the staff to stay abreast of any medical technological advancements.
References
Mills, A. F., Helm, J. E., & Wang, Y. (2021). Surge capacity deployment in hospitals: Effectiveness of response and mitigation strategies. Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 23(2), 367-387. Web.
Moore, W., & Frye, S. (2019). Review of HIPAA, Part 1: History, Protected Health Information, and Privacy and Security Rules. Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology, 47(4), 269–272. Web.
Morrison, G. R., Ross, S. J., Morrison, J. R., & Kalman, H. K. (2019). Designing effective instruction. John Wiley & Sons.