Electronic Record Adoption Process Scenario
You are the newly hired manager for the health information management department of a growing healthcare system. You receive a call from Sam, the chief information officer (CIO), about implementing an electronic health record (EHR).
For the last two years, Sam has been talking with key stakeholders about investing in an EHR system but waiting to see how the technologies would improve. However, as the system’s facility locations and service lines have continued to grow, Sam can see how an electronic record would make workflow much easier.
Certain patients are seen for inpatient and ambulatory care at more than one of the three hospital locations, usually out of patient convenience.
This presents some difficulty as the hospitals rely on a courier service to transport the records to support the continuum of care. Coding, billing, and other financial services are centralized in a downtown office. That means each chart must go back to the downtown office for coding, and there are additional steps for timely processing.
The internal HIM staff also has problems keeping up with records and providing responses to release of information (ROI) requests. Having the record in an electronic format would make record retrieval and availability much easier.
Sam has been speaking with the nursing and ancillary staff and is receiving mixed responses about adopting an electronic record. Most of the nurses prefer having paper in their hands and the ability to locate information on patients by paging through a document.
The newly hired nurses directly out of school have been trained in using the electronic record and prefer its ease of use. The coders and transcriptionists are supportive; they see how electronic records would improve their workflow. Many of the younger doctors and nurse practitioners are comfortable with the use of technology.
Dr. Morgan, the physician liaison, prefers the paper record because of familiarity, and Sam believes if Dr. Morgan could be shown some of the benefits of having an electronic record, Dr. Morgan would be on board and work with the implementation team to adopt an EHR. Dr. Morgan is willing to listen but wants to clearly see how this investment will benefit the physician staff and the healthcare system as a whole. Sam has taken Dr. Morgan’s request to the implementation team, and they will support the implementation if they see a cost-benefit to the investment.
Sam is looking to you and your expertise in the health information management field to perform several tasks. First, Sam would like you to form a project team to evaluate the organization’s current workflow and assess how clinicians and staff are currently using health information at all three acute care and the several ambulatory sites.
In particular, Sam wants you to meet the nursing and clinical staff. Sam believes if you meet them, spend time with them during their workday, and assess the patient flow, you will be better prepared to address any of their concerns in moving away from a paper record.
After that, Sam would like you to meet with the health information management leadership team. They have several concerns about the workflow within their department.
The ROI staff is having trouble fulfilling requests from patients, internal and external auditors, and attorneys due to records being located in the coding office across town or at another facility.
The chart analysis staff are concerned about being unable to apply deficiencies because of chart location. There are days when charts are in stacks on desks or in carts waiting to be processed.
Finally, the records processing staff has complained that records often end up in coding before the internal chart analysis functions are complete. There have also been instances where a routing slip was incorrectly filled out and the record was sent to the wrong facility.
This slows down access to patient information and limits the provision of quality health care. One of the managers suggests that you also include ROI clerks, chart deficiency analysts, coders, and records processing staff in future meetings.
Sam is asking that you and your project team begin spending time in the facilities, evaluating workflow, and identifying the needs of the staff. In six months, Sam would like to see a report with ideas and some potential goals.
If the EHR initiative is approved, Sam would also like you to take a lead role in selecting a vendor for implementing the EHR system. Sam would like you to create an additional report on the details involved in selecting an EHR vendor for the healthcare system.
731.5.2:
Assessment-Driven Decisions for Health Information Management
The graduate evaluates an organization’s medical practice workflow, functional needs of end-users, data infrastructure, and information technology systems and processes, specifically during adoption phases of health information systems.
731.5.3:
Resource Implications in Healthcare Information
The graduate evaluates a vendor negotiation strategy for the implementation of an electronic health record (EHR).
731.5.5:
Project Planning and Management
The graduate applies the principles of project management for project planning and development, launch, and evaluating specific project ideas in healthcare organizations.
Introduction
Today’s healthcare environment comprises teams of professionals working toward common goals. When the organization sets a goal, there is generally a project that launches to support the goal to its completion.
Health information management (HIM) professionals are participants and leaders in projects involving the implementation of new technologies and in additional projects that involve training and maintenance after the technologies are in place.
A project such as the adoption of an electronic health record (EHR) across a healthcare system takes significant planning, strong leadership, and the ability to manage change in the environment. HIM professionals’ competence in managing project teams, analyzing organizational processes, identifying the need for change, and implementing new initiatives are necessary skill sets in today’s healthcare delivery environment.
They are critical components of the work performed by the HIM professional. To complete this task, you will read and respond to the attached “Electronic Record Adoption Project Scenario.”
Requirements
Your submission must be your original work. No more than a combined total of 30% of the submission and no more than a 10% match to any one individual source can be directly quoted or closely paraphrased from sources, even if cited correctly.
The similarity report that is provided when you submit your task can be used as a guide. You must use the rubric to direct the creation of your submission because it provides detailed criteria that will be used to evaluate your work.
Each requirement below may be evaluated by more than one rubric aspect. The rubric aspect titles may contain hyperlinks to relevant portions of the course. Tasks may not be submitted as cloud links, such as links to Google Docs, Google Slides, OneDrive, etc., unless specified in the task requirements. All other submissions must be file types that are uploaded and submitted as attachments (e.g., .docx, .pdf, .ppt).
- Perform a needs assessment for the healthcare organization described in the “Electronic Record Adoption Process Scenario” by doing the following:
- Identify one area of the organization’s health information management (HIM) workflow needing assessment in the scenario.
- Explain one concern that HIM staff from part A1 may have related to adopting an EHR.
- Explain the functional needs that staff members in the HIM department may have.
- Describe how privacy and security will be affected after moving from a paper record system to the EHR.
- Describe each of the project phases that should be included in a project plan for adopting an EHR for the healthcare organization in the scenario.
- Explain how to form a project team for the healthcare organization in the scenario, including which characteristics should be present in a project team.
- Describe one benefit the healthcare organization in the scenario could gain from adopting an EHR.
- Examine elements of the vendor selection process by doing the following:
- Justify how a cost-benefit analysis will help to focus the vendor selection process.
- Discuss the difference between a request for information (RFI) and a request for proposal (RFP).
- Explain why one might be preferred over the other.
- Explain why an RFI and an RFP may both be used in the same vendor selection process.
- Explain the elements included in writing an RFP and the information included in each element.
- Discuss how you would establish a good working relationship with the vendors and company representatives involved in the selection process for new technology.
- Acknowledge sources, using in-text citations and references, for content that is quoted, paraphrased, or summarized.
- Demonstrate professional communication in the content and presentation of your submission.