With the increasing demand for interconnectivity in the industry, hospitals have seen the need to share information with other organization yet it entails the formation of interconnection of software between the parties. Since these programs are developed independently from each other, the software and information coded in each software may require linkages to other network in order for users to access them seamlessly. In this situation, the Best of Breed software creates a complicated and often expensive system to operate. The use of monolithic system can limit the expenses of health institutions. Not only can it be economical, it can also provide universal information for the health practitioners. By complying with the recent government regulations, the health institutions are required to be consistent in their patient identifier in order to minimize confusion. Thus, a single structure of software system like a monolithic design could provide them with consistent information across all divisions and departments (Marion, 2013). Linking several programs might require extensive work force and software development on the part of the subscribers. The disadvantage of Best of Breed system is maintaining a homegrown support team that can develop ways in achieving the Meaningful Use criteria. This requires hundreds of developers especially since the criteria requires the use of barcoding system. It is through this reasons that healthcare institutions prefer to use commercially available system that could solve this requirements. In a monolithic system, a single vendor approach might provide convenience for these institutions since they will be coordinating with one vendor. A multi-vendor system might lead to confusion and further inconvenience for the users (Congdon, 2012).
In my opinion, the monolithic system can be effective as long as it can be integrated in different specialization in the field. There might be few apprehensions regarding the security in monolithic system since a “big chunk” of data might be vulnerable (Saleem, Flanagan, Wilck, Demetriades & Doebbeling, 2013). Hence, there might be a room for a monolithic system to integrate specialized software for the different users. Although, the most challenging part in this endeavor is aiding the user into the information that would help them in their profession. It might be a long way for this integration to commence since different institutions have different system. It might be complicated to migrate to a different system without reviewing their needs and comparing it with the standard requirement in their profession.
References
Congdon, K. (2012). Have Best-Of-Breed EMRs Lost The Hospital Battle. Healthitoutcomes.com. Retrieved 25 July 2015, from http://www.healthitoutcomes.com/doc/have-best-of-breed-emrs-lost-the-hospital-battle-0001
Marion, J. (2013). Best of Breed or Single Vendor – Which is right for Healthcare Imaging? Healthcare-informatics.com. Retrieved 25 July 2015, from http://www.healthcare-informatics.com/blogs/joe-marion/best-breed-or-single-vendor-which-right-healthcare-imaging
Saleem, J., Flanagan, M., Wilck, N., Demetriades, J., & Doebbeling, B. (2013). The next-generation electronic health record: perspectives of key leaders from the US Department of Veterans Affairs. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 20(e1), e175-e177. doi:10.1136/amiajnl-2013-001748
