Question

Lakes Central Regional Hospital recently entered discussions to acquire
and merge with St. Vincent’s Hospital, a hospital with 60 beds, and with
Lake City Physician Practice, an affiliated outpatient medical practice of 30
physicians. This merger will capture more of the regional market, keeping
care within the proposed merged facilities. St. Vincent’s and Lake City use
the same electronic medical record (EMR) software, but it is deployed as
two separate systems—one for outpatients and one for inpatients. Both
organizations have a small internal information technology (IT) department. and staff who administer and maintain the software. Lakes Central uses a
different EMR, and its leadership is interested in merging the EMRs as part
of the acquisition, knowing the benefit of sharing data between inpatient
and outpatient care as well as the cost savings from reducing the number
of software licenses and amount of IT maintenance.
St. Vincent and Lake City use their EMR for care delivery, and the EMR
has replaced most of their paper records. They have not explored the EMR’s
additional functionality or advanced analytics because of lack of time, lack
of physician interest, and cost. Lakes Central was an early adopter of the
EMR and electronic systems and has actively developed key performance
indicators for the practice. Its use of the EMR, not just for patient care but
for improving operational efficiency and patient outcomes, has earned the
hospital high marks and enabled it to maintain a healthy operating margin.
As part of the planned merger, Lakes Central leadership has consulted
its IT department about the effort involved in bringing together the EMRs.
Case Study Discussion Questions
Given that St. Vincent’s and Lake City have different backgrounds
and different levels of EMR adoption, how would an information
management strategy help guide the system merger? Which area of emphasis should be considered first? Why? What are some of the risks of this type of merger, and how would
these risks influence the information management strategy?

Answer 1

#. Information management strategies are plans that guide a company to keep its information management practices in sync, improve its processes, and prepare for the future. These plans can include the following information:

Current status

Goals for the future

Concrete steps to achieve those goals

Plans to acquire new resources

Processes and policies for interacting with business departments

Assigning responsibility for implementing and reporting each

#. The area to be emphasized first in this type of merging is on the steps to achieve goals because as its said for the building to be safe and stronger ,the base must be strong enough . Sameway , to achieve the goals the steps taken to reach the goal is very important .

#. Some of the risks associated with this type of merger are :-

Regulatory scrutiny

Less flexibility

Potential to destroy value rather than creating

These risks will influence information management strategies as it would hinder the normal process of information management practices and hence leads to ineffective planning and functioning .