Proposal for Developing Electronic Medical Records
Proposal for Developing Electronic Medical Records
Executive Summary
An electronic medical record is a computerized version of a medical portfolio which stores all medical information of a patient including clinical history, medical condition, treatments received in the past, present medications, allergies etc. This file consists of data which is very useful for emergency treatments where delay can prove to be fatal, but in absence of critical information related to medical history of the patient, doctors are forced to delay treatment until they receive all clinical information about the patient. Healthcare organizations have started to rely increasingly on Electronic Medical Records of their patients, which can be accessed online from anywhere using unique identification codes.
This paper presents the executive summary of a business plan to launch EMRs for a healthcare firm. It researches the feasibility of the project, resource and fund allocations, market and projected return on investments.
Background and Rationale
More and More healthcare organizations are initiating maintenance of EMR as it helps in providing value added service to the patient. Initially the medical history of patient was documented using physician’s prescriptions. With the discovery of Information Technology, it became easier to create and maintain medical history and treatment record of patients using software. The software is used to sort data, file and store them under relevant fields. Maintaining electronic files of patients is preferred by healthcare organizations as they could be retrieved, updated and furnished the clinical information immediately in case of emergency. Further developments in IT have made it possible to access data from anywhere through online services. EMRs are being used to suggest computerized therapeutic directions too for patient specific and just in time treatment (Ebrahiminia, Duclos,Toussi, Riou, Cohen, & Venot, A. 2005). The patient is also spared the effort of carrying his medical documents everywhere and can avail prompt response and is willing to pay for it. Research has also indicated its usefulness in genetic investigation and personalized medicine (Kho, Pacheco, Peissig, Rasmussen, Newton, Weston & Kullo, 2011)..Therefore developing EMR is expected to be a profitable project for healthcare organizations.
The project for EMR development would serve the purpose of adding value to patient care and achieve customer satisfaction, adding another product to the company’s portfolio and increase revenue collection, improve the quality of treatment through prompt response and accurate diagnosis facilitated by EMRs and technological up gradation of services using Internet and IT enabled platforms.
However initiating a project for developing EMR must follow internal and external research to assess availability of resources and organizational competency, strengths and weakness as well as external environment of the organization.
Internal research. Internal research is carried out to estimate organizational capacity to undertake the project. It has to establish whether necessary skills, knowledge and technical knowhow are present within the organization or have to be hired. Once resource facilitation is established, the management must decide on the project team and its leadership. A timeline for the project must also be determined. It has to establish whether the financial reserves are sufficient to fund the project or it must be loaned from creditors. Most importantly it has to assess whether the organization is ready to adapt to the change and the new method of storing and retrieving patient information could be implemented effectively. Also steps such as training plans and other change management strategies are formulated to prepare the employees to adapt to the technological change.
External Research. This is undertaken to establish whether the political, Economic, Socio-cultural, technological, environmental and legal atmosphere surrounding the firm is suitable for launching the project. Known as PESTEL analysis it helps in aligning the strategic planning of the organization with the macro environment (Koumparoulis, 2013). It establishes whether there is enough demand for the product and whether the external factors are supportive for introducing the product. Surveys and secondary sources will be used to conduct the research.
Marketing strategies include advertisement in popular media channels and other promotional activities like endorsements from celebrities and online promotions like email, pop up links to create awareness and build a market for the product.
Funds for the project will be arranged from external investors. Preliminary research indicates that there is a profitable market for the product in the healthcare sector which promises a high return on investments.
References
Ebrahiminia, V., Duclos, C., Toussi, M. E., Riou, C., Cohen, R., & Venot, A. (2005). Representing the patient's therapeutic history in medical records and in guideline recommendations for chronic diseases using a unique model. Studies in health technology and informatics, 116, 101-106.
Kho, A. N., Pacheco, J. A., Peissig, P. L., Rasmussen, L., Newton, K. M., Weston, N., & Kullo, I. J. (2011). Electronic medical records for genetic research: results of the e MERGE consortium. Science translational medicine, 3(79), 79re1-79re1.
Koumparoulis, D. N. (2013). PEST Analysis: The case of E-shop. International Journal of Economy, Management and Social Sciences, 2(2), 31-36.
