Introduction
Quality service delivery is the fundamental responsibility of any healthcare institution in this century. Healthcare centers are obligated to provide standard services which meet the expectations of the clients. Georgian Bay General Hospital is one of the healthcare centers which are trying to improve their systems to meet the national standards. This institution has realized that it needs to automate its data system to enable it share vital patients’ information with other healthcare institutions within the state. Automating the data system will also help it improve the manner in which it handles patients. In this paper, the researcher will identify the current weaknesses of the systems at this firm propose approaches that it can use to automate its data management system.
Current Situation, State Of Practice, and Existing Conditions
Need identification involves analyzing the current situation with the aim of noting areas of weakness that need to be addressed. Georgian Bay General Hospital is currently using computerized system to manage patients’ data. However, the system is not properly integrated. This has made it difficult for it to share vital information with other healthcare institutions within the state. A review of the system reveals that sometimes it difficult for different departments within the hospitals to share data because of the poorly structured data management system. As Goudreau and Smolenski (2014) say, poor data management system lowers the productivity of medical staff, especially if they are forced to leave their working stations to get physical records of the patients from other departments. This was identified as the main weakness that needs to be addressed. The management of this hospital will need to embrace some of the industry’s best practices in data management such as the use of Leapfrog’s Computerized Physician’s Order Entry (CPOE). The figure below shows that the number of hospitals in the country which are complying with this requirement has been on the rise since 2009.
Proposed Solution
According to Hall and Roussel (2014), hospitals in most of the developed countries have learnt the importance of communication, and therefore, have made heavy investments to improve it. Institutions such as Mayo Clinic have state-of-the-art communication systems to help the relevant stakeholders share data within the hospital and with external stakeholders. At Georgian Bay General Hospital, this is not the case. Inasmuch as the facility has eliminated paperwork at the registration desk, the system is yet to be properly structured to offer the needed services. Its back-up database is also not properly integrated with the main database. This has resulted in cases where the medical staff struggle to retrieve patient’s data in case of a collapse of the main database. Improving the existing communication system will be the best way of addressing such a problem (Stensaker & Meyer, 2012). It may be necessary to redesign the entire communication system within the firm to improve data management and data sharing among the medical staff. The new system will also improve the relationship between family members of the patients and the medical staff. These family members and friends will be able to monitor the progress of their patients through this automated system instead of having to bother the medical staff.
Implementation Plan
Implementation of this new program is expected to take only one month, with the fifth week set aside for evaluation of the system. It will involve replacing all the personal computers at the workstations which are ineffective. The firm may need to purchase a mainframe computer to act as a database. It may be necessary to have a new team that will be involved specifically in monitoring the system to ensure that it functions smoothly at all times. The management may need to come up with a new policy that will emphasize on the need to share data with the relevant external stakeholders (Finkler, Jones, & Kovner, 2013). Currently, it is not easy for this facility to share its patients’ data with other hospitals because of the ineffective system. Given that the current problem will be solved, a new policy should be developed to remind the staff about the relevance of information sharing (Smissen, Schalk, & Freese, 2013). The materials that will be purchased will include new computers, cables, and all the gadgets that will make the entire system go online.
Evaluation Plan
This new data management system is expected to improve efficiency of the staff and reduce the amount of time they spend handling patients. To determine how effective the system is, the evaluators will compare the time used by the staff to handle an individual patient before and after the introduction of the new system (Zaccagnini & White, 2014).
- Structure, process, and outcome measures
The evaluation will involve determining how well this facility can share relevant information with relevant institutions within the region. This system is also expected to lower the unit cost of handling patients (Hamric, Hanson, Tracy, & O’Grady, 2014). The evaluators will review the cost of handling patients before and after the implementation to determine if the expected outcome has been achieved. The new automated system should ensure that nurses at this institution can easily share patients’ information without necessarily leaving their workstations. Benchmarking with some of the best practices such as the system used by Mayo Clinic will help in this evaluation (Mathews, 2010). - Return on Investment (ROI)
It is important to note that this new system is meant to improve efficiency and lower costs of operation for the firm. Return on investment may not be effectively determined in monetary terms because level of satisfaction of both the staff and clients cannot be valued in terms of money. The benefits will be seen as soon as the system becomes operational (Coulson, 2013).
Financials
This project is aimed at reducing the cost of operations at this hospital (Waxman, 2013). It is important to note that the major benefits of this project will be increased satisfaction among all the stakeholders at this healthcare center. These feelings may not be quantified making it impossible to conduct a break-even analysis. However, the benefits will be enjoyed immediately after the completion of the project. The budget is given in the appendix
Conclusions
Georgian Bay General Hospital can only improve quality of its services if it introduces a new communication system that will facilitate effective data management. The proposed system will help this hospital to share its data internally and with relevant external stakeholders. This project will also lower the cost of operations at the hospital, besides increasing the level of customer satisfaction.
References
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