Question

Meadow Hills Hospital is a 211-bed acute care hospital w its medical staff. Meadow serves a population of 300,000. similarly sized hospitals in the region. As an ore are three very well run. It has a good reputation in the communit be technically advanced based on its investments in imagin organization is also in a strong financial position, with $28 Background Information with 400 membersn anization, Meadow Hills tion in the community and is considereds 8 million in reserves. an information technology strategic plan, Meadow Hills has never had an information technol Information Systems Challenge The IT function reports to the Meadow Hills chief financial CEO and other members of the senior leadership team have larel decisions up to the CFO. As a result, the organization's financial syst very well developed. Computerized provider order entry (CPOE), an elec health record (EHR) system, and a PACS have not been implement support for departments such as nursing, pharmacy, laboratory, imaging, and risk management is limited. left IT stems are ms electronic The Meadow Hills IT team is well regarded and the limited IT suppon clinical processes has not drawn complaints from the nursing or medical staf The organization does not currently have a chief information officer (CIo). The CEO has never felt the need to pay attention to IT. However, h worried that reimbursement based on care quality will arrive at Meadow Hi soon. He also believes that the Meadow Hills Clinical Center would be more competitive if it had stronger IT support; rival labs and imaging centers are able to offer electronic access to test results. And he sus- pects that the lack of IT support may eventually lead to nurses and physicians choosing to practice elsewhere. e is Laboratory and Imaging Discussion Questions 1. What steps should the CEO take to develop an IT strategy for the organization? 2. Are there unique risks to the ability of Meadow Hills Hospital to develop and implement an IT strategy?

Answer 1

1. Information systems has grabbed the attention of everyone with its excellent services. To be well reputed and known organisation it should have a proper IT department which have its backup and helps the organisation to be well connected with other centers and for its multifunction and 24×7services . In this case, the scenario is that Meadow Hills Hospital has a information technology system but it's not that much advanced and updated . It does not provide order entry services , EHR ,and PACS . The unfortunate thing is that there three services are very essential part of the hospital which helps their staffs to work more effectively because order entry services allow staffs to put order related indents like medical, surgical ,stationary indents to be placed online with out giving a manual one . EHR will help the patient's and medical staffs to be aware of the health records and these are totally confidential and well protected . PACS helps to see the online reports of the imaging studies which helps the physicians to see the results at the bedside itself . To make it's IT department more updated and efficient the CEO must take the following steps :-

- An administrative level meeting to discuss on the concerns regarding it's IT department drawbacks

- Should I use it's staff to know their view points ,is there any contradictory suggestions

- A light on the benefits of the core aspects of IT features like uasage of EHR ,PACS

- How can they inculcate these features by using a system friendly inexpensive software

- After choosing the software which have all the essential elements which are needed to upgrade the existing system

- Have a small pilot run of the selected software and provide training to the staffs on how to use this software .

- Take a feedback and analyse it whether it's appreciatable and appropriate and then include it in the daily use of the hospital services in this way there will a tremendous change in the hospital functioning.

2. Risks are there in any new implementation of any sector and also a fear or we can say it as stress that whether the new implementation will be successful or not . To solve this we need to first analyse the risks or hinderences which are coming in front of this new implementation . In this same way Meadow Hills Hospital also have certain risks that they need to take care of while implementing the IT strategy . These are the following :-

- financial balance to buy a software

- staffs cooperation to use the new software

- software maintainence system

- a team of techies to look after the functioning usage of the new software which should brought from outside to avoid bias .

- safety and security of the software and patient data

- backup of the data to avoid any mistaken loss

3. Meadow Hills Hospital is found to be successful without having an IT strategy because in there city or community out of every hospital, Meadow has a good hold of reputation based on its investment on imaging technology and also it has a good financial position . There might be chances that the other hospitals don't have this much facilities so more of the population rush towards Meadow Hills Hospital than others . Even though it has a IT system functional in their organization others might don't have that . To be more successful and number in the upcoming years , Meadow Hills Hospital should inculcate the essential elements in their IT system that are order entry ,EHR ,PACS so that their working staffs are able to do their work more smoothly and produce a productive outcome in terms of patient care , early discharge by giving more attention to patient care , and overall holding the reputation of organization because of its increased turnover and productivity.