As medical practices merge, it is certain that systems will change. As a result of the merger, the organization will want to operate as a combined system and to do this, plans have to be developed to change some or all of the systems. In the plan, it is important to consider the role of technologies vis-à-vis the need to promote patient safety and enhance the quality of patient care. In addition, it is also vital to consider implementing health information systems that meet the regulatory requirements as set by the federal government. When it comes to the application of advanced information management, it is vital to consider the internal structure, content, and functionalities of the systems and to provide insights to empower the nature of the systems for the end users (McHugh & Lake, 2010). In this scenario, where one healthcare organization is merging with another, implementing a health care information system to serve patients requires a carefully planned process in which a committee team, expertise, interoperability, standardization, system components, federal requirements, industry standards, potential security threats, and the implications of the system must all be considered.
Project Committee
Projects that relate to the application of an advanced information management system and the technology must always be driven by their business owners such as doctors, nurses, and staff who are the end users of the systems. In addition, the projects must start with a charter to identify stakeholder, purpose of the project, success metrics and the roles of responsibilities of those involved. For this reason, there is a need to have a project committee. For the project that relates to the merger, the committee will include an executive steering team made up of hospital/facility administrators, chief nursing officer, and chief information officer who chair the committee. It also includes a mid-level governance team made of clinical directors who are physicians. There is also the technical system handling teams that include the system administrator and IT experts who are representatives of the different hardware and software issues that relate to patient information.
Role of the Committee Team Members
The executive steering team assumes the responsibility for the project in terms of identifying and communicating the vision and ensures emerging issues are resolved. Nurses facilitate end-user engagement and enhance system design. They also provide education and effectively communicate the change to all stakeholders, including the engagement of patients concerning the project goal. The clinical directors provide a top-down support to the executive team and notify the executive committee of approvals or disapprovals. The team also decides what will be done and who will do it. The system administrator and information system experts help to tailor the systems in accordance with the proposed system requirements and the deal with operationalizing the system, maintaining it, and ensuring it features the safety aspects that relate to information handling. Essentially, the focuses of the teams are in the strategic planning, project prioritization, and project approval. The goal is to have a system that integrates a heterogeneous set of software and hardware into a unified system in relation to the information requirements of the health organization.
Bringing together the right group of people is an important contributing factor to the success of the project. When selecting a committee team, the members should take a professional approach and hence the focus on members with masters level knowledge and experience. Hospital administrators’ expertise in fiscal and operational matters helps to raise relevant ethical, legal, and technical issues of governance for efficient administration. Nurses bring in technical and clinical expertise that relates to the provision of care and clinical practice on the basis of effective care provision for the patients. They help to intuitively make critical clinical decisions in relation to the nature of the systems and this helps to define the information flow patterns and prevailing norms (McHugh & Lake, 2010). The IT experts and system administrator’s expertise lies in the mainframe hardware and software aspects of the system. They bring in the knowledge of the application requirements in a consistent way to ensure the user path requirements are simplified and runtime conflicts are reduced.
Importance of Interoperability
Interoperability is the capacity of the systems to exchange information so that it is user readable. It is a requirement of health care systems because of the need for the new systems to coexist and cooperate with other pre-existing systems. In merging the two systems, it is important to ensure that no pre-existing information is lost or subject to errors. In addition, data from different departments may be merged or linked through software applications to enable a coordinated system. One of the main considerations made in regard to the merged systems is the establishment of a centrally controlled system. Therefore, interoperability helps to develop a centralized and complete health information system in relation to the set electronic health record and device standards as well as the decision support and care services (Dogac, 2012). In this case, interoperability is important considering that the new systems need to meet the specific needs without losing coherence.
Importance of Standardized Nursing Terminology in Capturing Nursing-specific Data
In regard to the healthcare system, it is important to make a clear distinction between the nursing contribution and the contribution of medicine. To capture the nursing contributions that will reflect the uniqueness of the nursing care role, standardized nursing terminologies should be used (Schwiran & Thede, 2011). The use of standardized nursing terminologies in capturing nursing-specific data is essential in developing a diagnostic classification system and verifying the contribution of efficient quality health care. It also serves to ensure that standards of care are factored. With nursing specific terminologies incorporated, it becomes easier to assess the nursing competency and to highlight the nursing interventions in the system.
Recent Federal Regulatory Requirements Supporting Health Information Technology
There are two landmark pieces of federal legislation that seek to advance the use and deployment of caregiver technologies: the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Both Acts support the use of technology in the health care systems. The HITECH and ARRA Acts provide economic incentives to support technology-related infrastructure to federally qualified health centers so that they can make objective use of health information technologies to facilitate efficient care delivery (Goldstein & Thorpe, 2010). Considering the regulations, health information technology is supported by the federal requirements because of the aspects of effectiveness and efficiency in relation to the goal of providing quality health care for all. The main components of the new system include electronic health records for clinical documentation and performance diagnostic tools that determine the system performance. These components meet the regulatory requirement in relation to the HITECH and ARRA Acts in that they empower access to health care and collaborative care and ensure that system problems can be identified and addressed.
Potential security threats and system features to ensure the protection of patient privacy
It is important to develop secure systems because of the potential security threats that may adversely affect the effectiveness and efficiency of the information system. There are various security threats to the system like unauthorized access, theft of data, and destruction by viruses or malicious damage. When data is in the wrong hands or destroyed, it can compromise the ability of the systems to remain secure and the privacy of the patients and the quality of information used (Omotosho & Emuoyibofarhe, 2014). To protect patient privacy, it is necessary for the system to incorporate a design policy and privacy protection tools. The privacy policy is important as it relates to the restrictions on the use of patient information to permitted individuals and for specific purposes. The privacy protection tools include encryption tools meaning that patient data cannot be used or accessed unless the patient is aware and thus the patient is given the decryption key such as a login signature.
Implications of current and emerging technologies
Emerging technologies play a critical role in complementing the functionality and effectiveness of existing technologies and systems. Use of mobile technology and the internet have been a common phenomenon in the world of emerging technologies that facilitate communication with remote facilities. Mobile technology and the internet have made communication virtually easy and have been commonly applied in the non-clinical applications to facilitate monitoring and communication. This makes it easy to coordinate functions and also get real time information that can help in making decisions. Patient-centered applications and electronic health record systems are also important aspects in the clinical applications that help in advancing clinical practices and research. They have been used in monitoring patients and facilitating a clinical decision support infrastructure. This helps in not only providing care but also advancing the reach and effectiveness in the provision of care.
References
Dogac, A. (2012). Interoperability in eHealth Systems. Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment, 5(12), 2026-2027: The 38th International Conference on Very Large Data Bases, August 27th - 31st 2012. Istanbul, Turkey.
Goldstein, M. M., & Thorpe J. H. (2010). The first anniversary of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act: The Regulatory Outlook for Implementation. Perspectives in Health Information Management, 7(Summer), 1c.
McHugh, M. D., & Lake, E. T. (2010). Understanding Clinical Expertise: Nurse Education, Experience, and the Hospital Context. Research in Nursing & Health, 33(4), 276-287.
Omotosho, A., & Emuoyibofarhe, J. (2014). A Criticism of the Current Security, Privacy and Accountability Issues in Electronic Health Records. International Journal of Applied Information Systems, 7(8), 11-18.
Schwiran, P., & Thede, L. (2011). Informatics: The Standardized Nursing Terminologies: A National Survey Of Nurses’ Experiences and Attitudes-Survey I. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 16(2).
