Practitioners in health information management and healthcare informatics are expected to be keenly aware of new and upcoming technologies that might benefit their organization. This becomes more complex as these individuals must also consider the impact that those technologies might have on the practice of medicine at their institution. When faced with new technologies, leaders in health information management must evaluate the state of the organization and make an informed decision that will affect the organization as a whole. This means addressing not just the needs of the health information management team, but the needs of all roles within the institution, while also addressing any issues of compliance the organization might be facing.
The final project for this course is a health information technology recommendation. You will analyze an institution and offer recommendations on technology systems improvement.
Prompt: MILESTONE ONE Imagine you have been contracted to consult on the recent developments at the Featherfall Medical Center. Featherfall has been struggling of late; it has had a series of problems that have prompted your hiring. It has faced the following issues:
1. Featherfall has recently violated several government regulations regarding the current state of its technology and how it is being used. The technology system is vastly out of date, and staff are not always using the technology that is in place or they are using the technology inappropriately. These problems have lost the institution lots of money for not meeting government regulations and have caused operational and ethical problems from inefficient and ineffective use of technology.
2. The staff at Featherfall are not well-trained on the use of technology and do not communicate appropriately about technology use. The roles that pertinent to your consult are the health information management team, the clinical staff (doctors, nurses, etc.), and administrative staff. The health information management team uses proper coding practices, and the current technology system serves them well, despite its age. However, other roles in the hospital have had issues with the system. Clinical staff, for instance, have had record-keeping issues both due to lack of training on the system and the system itself being out of date. Administrative staff within the organization have taken issue with the lack of communication about the technology and its use between the various roles. When the current technology system was chosen many years ago, the needs of these various roles were not considered.
Specifically the following critical elements must be addressed:
I. Preparation for Consult: In this section of your final project, you will prepare for your consultation on the organization’s technology choice. To prepare, you will analyze the field of health information management for determining standard technologies and guidelines related to technology use in order to inform your technology selection.
A. Analyze key historical events in the field of health informatics for how technology has been used that could inform the management of health information. Be sure to support your response with appropriate examples.
B. Determine guidelines for technology use in the field of health information management that Featherfall could implement. Be sure to support your response with research.
C. Determine the standard technologies currently used in the field of health information management. Be sure to support your response with research. For example, what record-keeping technologies are typically used in the field?
D. Develop an overview of how the pertinent roles described at Featherfall would interact with technology.
E. Describe the process you would use to evaluate new health information technology systems. Be sure that your process will evaluate new systems based on how they meet the needs of the organization and how they are compliant with health regulations and laws.