Elements of HIT Strategic Plan
Instructions:-
Develop a HIT Strategic Plan for your own company. You can choose whatever topic as long as it pertains to health information technology.
Address the following components:
- Provide a statement of corporate/ institutional goals and objectives;
- Provide a statement of HIT goals and objectives;
- Discuss priorities for the applications portfolio;
- Include the specifications of overall HIT architecture and infrastructure;
- Include a software development plan;
- Include a HIT management and staffing plan; and
- Include a statement of resource requirements.
Solution
Elements of HIT Strategic Plan
Background
Ryran Healthcare has a consistent history of incorporating technology and innovation in the Healthcare system. The initiative by the company includes coordinated care service through the Medicaid system and eHealth system. As a company, we have adopted a defined standard and strategies to address the challenges which may be forthcoming from the full implementation of the IT in the company. The infrastructure which will enhance the adoption of these reforms is the Health Information Technology (HIT) which includes telehealth services electronic health records (EHRs) and usage of health care data to improve the care given to the clients. As part of the reform, the company has a body with oversight mandate to ensure the company’s goals and strategies are realized. The Ryran Company goals are:-
Goal 1: Transform the community health and the health care delivery
The objectives
- Provide quality health care to all clients
- Open new equipped branches to ensure accessible, timely, efficient and effective person-centered health care
- Promote and protect public health and to have healthy resilient residences in the States.
Goal 2: Promote innovation, research, and scientific knowledge.
The Objectives
- Invest in research, share the information with other companies with the aim of improving the health care
- Increase availability and usability of electronic health information
- Quicken commercialization and development of innovative technologies
Goal 3: Improve Person-Centered Health
The objectives
- Developing strategic plan which will link all the company branches with an efficient health information exchange
- Implementation of plans to have electronic health records.
- Encourage individual and the company partnerships
- Empower family, individual and works engagement.
The predominant purpose of the company plans is to support our workers, empower the patients and health care processes and expedite the change to a value-based health care to all our branches. It’s in now two years since the company piloted the original strategy plan and the results have revolutionized care in the company. The proliferation of health care technologies has improved the accessibility and transferability of the patients’ information across all the branches thus our clients can access continual healthy checks in all our branches with consistency response. In addition, the company has developed more seamless ways of sharing the patients’ information with the concerned staffs. The HIT broad goals and objective include
- Increased adoption of IT in the health care
- Strengthen health care services
- Foster the health of communities and individual well-being
- Advance secure health information
- Advance innovation and research by our team of medics
- Instill confidence and trust to our clients in HIT
- Improve community health, care and cost of medication by use of HIT
Although the state strategy is prone to change, the company has aligned its plans to meet the company objective within a time frame of five years. The kinesis of our patients’ information and accessibility of health data and records will be standardized by the end of the projected time. With the development and continual evolvement of the new regulations by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health (ONC), the company will implement the HIT in accordance with current requirements but keep abreast to change
Specifications of overall HIT architecture and infrastructure
The general framework for our company HIT architecture has the following components and infrastructure:-
- Application level- the system has electronic documentation, result reporting, clinical decision support and interface Engines.
- Communication level- the system can give message to remind patients of the next checkup by use of messaging standards like ASTM, NCPDP, and ADT
- Process level – the system has Master Patient Index which identifies each patient’s records, it has Health Information Exchange for linking the various branches with patients information when needed and HIPAA for security and privacy of patients records
- Device Level
The application of the above HIT in the company includes Result reporting, clinical documentation, clinical decision support and electronic prescribing. This application run on the server device and the information system serves a contracted function but with greater efficiency. The HIT infrastructure has support to external and internal users and has provided quality solutions. An upgrading of the system to cover all the other departments will revolutionize the company more. The adopted HIT architecture will reduce disruptions to changes in the company requirements as the system, hardware and version are stable in the healthcare service.
Software Development Plan
The process of developing the existing software will take all the stages of a new software development. Software development plan will undergo various development plans which include planning the purpose of the software, analysis of the key components, designing the software, developing and implementation of the software, testing if the software is performing the expected tasks and finally maintenance of the software regularly (Skott, 2015).
During the testing process in the software development, the following will be considered, the ability of the user to create an account, doctor ability to enter the clients’ visitation records, patients, admin and doctors are able to access the website and ability of the administration to create the patient profile. The training of the staff and the usability is key to this software development.
HIT management and staffing plan
Despite the company desire to have HIT in order to improve health, biomedical research, and healthcare, there are barriers to the full adoption. Mismatch of investment and the profit return, the workflow challenge, concern about patients’ confidentiality and lack of workforce to effectively implement the HIT system remain a challenge. As the company advance in the IT infrastructure, the need for IT staffing equally rise. As the company advances from stage 1 to stage 2 in the implementation of the HIT, the need of staff increase from 0.1 IT staff per bed to around 0.2 IT medic per bed (Hersh & Wright, 2013). These needs have necessitated the company to hire more HIT workforce out of the little population trained in the US. Advancement of the company HIT will, therefore, help the educational system in developing curricula which will give students training in HIT.
Statement of Resource Requirement
For the implement and upgrading of the above strategies, financial implications have to be considered. The profit expected should be matched with the cost of the upgrade, the capital needed to acquire new hardware system for the program and the cost of employing new staff should be factored in the planning. Time taken to adapt to the full changes fully should be cost-accounted as it will result to understaffing during the period which the old staff will be training and inducted into the new system (NCBI, 2014).
Conclusion
Application of these initiatives will see a continuous advancement and desired benefits to the public and individual health. The great demand for the management to provide the quality care and services has necessitated the company to adopt the IT in the system fully. Use of ICT will improve accuracy and timeliness of health reporting and facilitate the surveillance and monitoring of injuries and diseases among other benefits. The company has realized the benefits of IT in healthcare by early adoption phase and experimentation thus it has now moved to build and increase development of the application. The laid down strategies will promote the increased awareness and usage of the IT in all departments of the company health care thus benefiting the clients.
References
Department of Health. (2013). Philippines eHealth strategic plan. Retrieved from http://www.doh.gov.ph/sites/default/files/Philippines_eHealthStrategicFrameworkPlan_February02_2014_Release02.pdf
Gattadahalli, S. (2013). Ten Practices for Health IT Strategic Planning. Journal of Ahima, 1-6. Retrieved 06 06, 2017, from Ten Practices for Health IT Strategic Planning: http://journal.ahima.org/2013/01/01/ten-practices-for-health-it-strategic-planning/
Hersh, W., & Wright, A. (2013). What Workforce is Needed to Implement the Health Information Technology Agenda? Analysis from the HIMSS Analytics™ Database. Retrieved 06 06, 2017, from NCBI: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2656033/
MiHIN Strategic Plan . (2014). Strategic Plan. Retrieved from State of Michigan: https://www.michigan.gov/documents/mihin/MiHIN_Shared_Services_Strategic_Plan_4-30-10_320156_7.pdf
NCBI. (2014). Technical Issues for the Digital Health Infrastructure. Retrieved from Digital Infrastructure for the Learning Health System: The Foundation for Continuous Improvement in Health and Health Care: Workshop Series Summary: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK83563/
OHA. (2014). Oregon’s Strategic Plan for Health Information Technology. Retrieved 06 06, 2017, from Oregon Office of Health Information Technology: https://www.oregon.gov/oha/OHPR/HITOC/docs/Oregon%27s_Strategic_Plan_for_Health_IT.pdf
Skott, M. (2015). Impact of the New Health Information Technology Strategic Plan. Crowe Horwath.
