Planning an Ehr Implementation

Planning an EHR Implementation

Introduction

In the current technological era, hospitals are required to move along with the technological changes. Lawrence William Medical Center (LWMC) is a large hospital with several constituents and it has to possess a sound way of keeping the data of the patients that are treated at the facility.

Question A1
This hospital utilizes a "Best of Breed" solution and does not require that the system come from the same vendor. What other options or recommendations would you consider in this process?

LWMC’s IT systems are the “Best of Breed” and do not require the system come from the same vendor, freeing up WMS to consider a greater number of options. Not required from the same vendor should not be taken to mean that all products from all vendors will integrate with the existing infrastructure.  It is seems troublesome that WMS has chosen to ignore the integration advice and requirements given by the CIO and IT staff for the new EHR because doing so poses potential for errors, inefficient processes, and fragmentation of care. The Serious difficulties in implementing an EHR encountered by the rival group which lead to deinstalling of the system, likely stemmed from the EHR integration issues. I would recommend that WMS only select from vendors with certified EHRs because it would help them side step a lot of the pitfalls to best ensure long term success and value from IT.

A certified EHR Meets the standards set forth by CMS and ONC, and in doing so enables quality of patient care to be enhanced through structured data shared, retrieved and transferred efficiently. Certified EHRs would provide further piece of mind to WMC by meeting security requirements to house PHI, ward off attackers, and maintain data confidentiality without compromising shareability. The financial benefits are realized in two ways, by qualifying for CMS incentive programs for meaningful user, and avoid the penalties imposed on organizations that do not meet the standards (Fusion, 2015).

Question 2
What will be the impact of the CFO's and CIO's appointments to the WMS EHR steering committee?

With WMCs decision to not include the CIO and the IT staff on the steering committee in the initial stages, highlights their business strategy to be clinically orientated first by catering to the clinicians that use their systems. With this notable strategy in mind, the CIO& CFO, within WMS EHR steering committee, guides strategy discussions in which they present new technologies and their potential contributions to the goals and plans of the organization. At the core, the CIO shoulders the responsibility to, along with the leadership team, develop the process which would best lead to an alignment and strategic linkage between IT and WMC as a whole.

Question 3

Is an IT Strategy Necessary in this situation?

Information Technology (IT) strategy is very important in this situation. This is because IT strategy ensures that there is a clear and strong relationship between the IT investment decisions and the health care organization’s overall goals and objectives. The relationship in turn enables sound alignment of the IT agenda avoiding any misdirection of organizational resources. Some of the IT strategic planning objectives are:

- To ensure that the information technology plans and activities align with those of the organization.

- To help in the identification of non-IT organizational initiatives that are needed to ensure maximum leverage of the IT initiative.

- To make sure that the organization does not miss any significant IT opportunity like those that result from new technologies.

• To come up with a tactical plan that covers the approved project timetables, descriptions, budgets, risk factors and timetables (Wager, Lee & Glaser, 2017).  

If a strategic plan has not been developed in this situation, it means that most of these objectives and significance shall be left out. One of significant problem in the case study is that the Chief Information Officer and the IT staff have been left put in the process of looking for a vendor who shall supply information technology systems that they will have to work with. I think that this is not right as without the CIO and IT staff, the physicians may not be able to tell if the new EHR system that they will acquire will integrate well into the existing information technology systems at the LWMC.

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