Question One
I would present to the board of directors finance committee details like methods of raising monetary resources for funding the budget when seeking approval for new fiscal year budget. During presentation details like collecting money from patients, received funds from the government and donations from development partners like nongovernmental organisations are revealed. These details are significant as they determine whether the proposed budget can be financed from the existing resources (Wolper, 2011).
Details like how the organisation would ensure accountability in the utilisation of money budgeted for would also be presented to the board of directors finance committee. The board is likely to disprove the budget if mechanisms of preventing wastages and misappropriation are not in place. Therefore, in the committee, I would suggest best practices like inventory controls and other tenets of operations management in presenting details of curbing wastages and misappropriation of the budget funds (Hoyt, Yoshihashi & Bailey, 2012).
Details of the organisation’s strategic plan would also be presented to justify the proposed budget. Institutions that aspire growth and success normally run on huge budgets. However, the committee may decline the approval of the proposed budget if they do not match the establishment’s strategic plan regarding its objectives and long term goals. Issues presented to the board of directors finance committee which are not in tandem with the healthcare organisation goals may ruin budget approval. Therefore, I would present details touching on the organisation’s strategic plan to the board during budget approval for the fiscal year.
In budgeting, other expenditures are not always included though are inevitable due to their insignificant and obvious nature. In economics, they are referred to as petty expenditure. Nevertheless, they remain significant to the budgeting process and must be anticipated for and included in the budgeting. Therefore, I would present details of petty expenditure in the budgeting to the board of directors finance committee when seeking approval for a new fiscal year budget (Hoyt, Yoshihashi & Bailey, 2012).
Question Two
The advancement in clinical systems can benefit healthcare organisations in some ways like information management and enhanced diagnosis in patients. For instance, advancement in areas like communication and data management helps physicians interact with nurses on patients conditions without jeopardising the confidential nature attached to it. Many healthcare organisations are embracing service delivery charter trend and require enhanced clinical systems in areas of information management and data manipulation. Therefore, with the enhanced clinical systems, such trends are ably realised by many healthcare organisations (Wolper, 2011).
Other than health services like patient treatment, healthcare organisations also serve as a hub for research in vast areas of disease control and prevention which require the use of enhanced clinical systems like accurate data capture. For instance, the treatment and management of conditions like tuberculosis which requires patients to undergo extended medical therapy are best handled by enhanced clinical systems. Therefore, enhancement of clinical systems ensures success for organisations in the treatment and management of conditions like tuberculosis that require sound data management of the patient (Faltin, Kenett & Ruggeri, 2012).
Question Three
Daily administrative and management dashboards on the computer desktop enable free interaction between the administration and team members in the organisation as it presents information in a simple form that ensures complete comprehension (Kovner, Knickman & Jonas, 2011).
Monthly balanced scorecard of financial, clinical quality and satisfaction are beneficial as they ensure that the healthcare organisation remain steadfast to the realisation of the goals and objectives the establishment as they are anticipated in the strategic plan (Faltin, Kenett & Ruggeri, 2012).
Benchmarking is important as it enables team members like nurses and doctors to compare their operations with other facilities. Additionally, it helps inspire workers in areas of innovation and creativity especially where members of a healthcare organisation find other new ideas from other healthcare facilities (Hoyt, Yoshihashi & Bailey, 2012).
Flexible budget and monitoring are helpful in easy planning and coordination in an institution. Flexible budget, for instance, enables management to include other issues that were never anticipated for in the drafting and writing of the original budget but are necessary (Scott, 2014).
Labour management is essential in ensuring inventory control and management of the staff regarding their recruitment. It would provide a hospital with information on the number of staff required and how best to maintain them thus ensuring the organisation’s consistency.
Labour management, just like any other form of management enables the facility to achieve effectiveness and efficiency in the utilisation of resources and service delivery (Faltin, Kenett & Ruggeri, 2012).
Service line, physician and patient-level reporting and analysis are helpful in ensuring continued interaction across multiplicity teams in the management of patients. Additionally, it helps all the stakeholders in the management of the patient perform at their best while complimenting roles of one another. While the nurse attends to the patients’ needs, the doctor recommends treatment and care for the patient a duty executed by the nurse (Scott, 2014).
Cost accounting technology helps in realising costs and expenditure incurred in relation to a task or job performed in the healthcare organisation (Wolper, 2011).
Contract management technology helps in storing the price lists for contractible goods and services for the organisation thus achieving control for the healthcare organisation (Hoyt, Yoshihashi & Bailey, 2012).
Denials management software is important to a healthcare facility as it enables an organisation to improve services and revenue while reducing denial claims in its service provision (Faltin, Kenett & Ruggeri, 2012).
Question Four
The key features and functionality that should be present in any healthcare information system include incentives. In most instances, incentives are aligned to achieve utility which must conform to transparency. Therefore, as a feature and functionality of the healthcare information system, it would help the system achieve value for patient clients while ensuring transparency and accountability of the resources (Kovner, Knickman & Jonas, 2011).
Culture is another key functionality and feature of healthcare information system as it ensures that the facility’s data and information are stored in a way that appreciates the clients’ privacy. Organisations that operate on certain cultures discourage acts and tendencies that may compromise their reputation. Therefore, healthcare information system should possess culture as part of its functionality and feature. Patients are normally vulnerable due to their deteriorated conditions and as such require support. Healthcare information system should be designed in ways that provide support to patient clients that visit healthcare facilities regarding their treatment plans and healing progress (Scott, 2014).
However, due to the information-like nature of healthcare information system, science and informatics should inform the premise of their functionality features. Therefore, the system should digitise its information systems for easy retrieval. Digitization which is primarily the use of computers in storing information data is associated with a lot of benefits. Information of any form is sensitive to security threats and requires maximum protection against compromise of any nature. However, only a digitised information system can enhance data security thus it should constitute functionality feature of healthcare information system (Wolper, 2011).
References
Faltin, F. W., Kenett, R., & Ruggeri, F. (2012). Statistical methods in healthcare. Chichester, West Sussex, and United Kingdom: Wiley.
Hoyt, R. E., Yoshihashi, A., & Bailey, N. J. (2012). Health informatics: Practical guide for healthcare and information technology professionals. Raleigh, N.C.: Lulu.com.
Kovner, A. R., Knickman, J., & Jonas, S. (2011). Jonas & Kovner's health care delivery in the United States. New York: Springer Pub.
Scott, J. (2014). The book on healthcare IT: What you need to know about HIPAA, hospital IT, and healthcare information technology.
Wolper, L. F. (2011). Health care administration: Managing organized delivery systems. Sudbury, Mass: Jones and Bartlett Publishers.
