Feasibility Of Moving From Traditional All Paper To Modern Integrated Information Systems For Valley Medical Center And 3 Sister Clinics

Benefits of Implementing Modern Integrated Information Systems

Discuss about the Valley Medical Center and 3 Sister Clinics Feasibility of Moving From Traditional All Paper to Modern Integrated Information Systems?

Valley death hospital and 3 sisters Clinic is a private hospital which has been dedicated to the provision of various medical and counseling services. It has brought on board competent professionals who have been playing a significant role in its service delivery and quality. It offers a variety of services such as rehabilitation services, hospice, dementia treatment and all other medical disorder which needs medics’ attention. In the past, Valey hospital has been totally using paperwork to accomplish various activities. The method was time-consuming and prone to a lot of errors, it was subjecting employees to anxiety and stress. By the use of paperwork, the company has been suffering from lack of space due to the use of stores to keep documents. Therefore, the company has seen it wise to replace the old system by the new modern system which involves the use computers (desktops) networks, servers, ipads, desktops, and iPods. The replacement of paperwork to modernized integrated information systems will enhance efficiency in service delivery and increment in productivity of the Hospital. The decision was reached when the clients and patients were complaining about the time is taken for one to move from one department to another while seeking for medication (Yeung, 2010, p. 23). They believed that with the adoption of this new system, there will be a perfect combination of human capital (labor) and capital to boost total productivity or output. The new system will also enhance proper linkage from one department to another hence easy flow of information. Proper information flow will enable management to coordinate the activities in various departments to foster faster achievement of objectives and high level of efficiency.

The hospital is normally engaging in various activities which need more modern and sophisticated systems. They indulge in making orders for the drugs, keeping of patients records of transactions and data, making necessary arrangements for referrals and admissions and keeping of employees’ salaries and remunerations. It is very tedious for all these documents to be kept entirely in shelves and safes hence adopting new method will do more good than harm (Vining, Pence, & Hawkins, 2012, p. 34). The new system will enable the linkage of departments by the use of networks to enhance the flow of operations. The information flow through the network inter-linkage can be demonstrated in the diagram below .

Disadvantages of Implementing Modern Integrated Information Systems

Coordination becomes very hard when the company uses the traditional methods. So the new system will be very viable for proper coordination among the employees in each department without unnecessary physical movement. It will thus save on space and time.

Even though the hospital is contemplating to adopt the new method of the information system, there is a cost embedded in it. So the company should be able to lay down strategies which might make it succeed. Besides, the management must identify the risks which shall accrue as a result of the adoption of the modern mechanisms and commit to introducing precautions to mitigate them. They should also develop a statement of clear roles and responsibilities and divide labor according to areas of specialization. Besides, monitoring and compliance should also be another key issue to consider since some employees can adopt the ad hoc methods to achieve the certain goal while ignoring the procedures to be followed. To achieve the courses mentioned above of action, the employees should embrace the spirit of togetherness and support to one another.

The above factors are very crucial in the determination of the benefits got by the hospital. The identified benefits which have been identified in the hospital may be categorized as tangible and intangible benefits. The tangible and intangible benefits include the hospital managing to have real time data. The data will be very relevant to the entire department as far as decision making is concerned. Proper flow of data from the communication department to doctors department up to the pharmacy section will improve thus, efficiency in service delivery which leads to satisfaction of customers. Through integrated information system, there will be proper communication which will enable stakeholders of Valley Hospital to work as a team since they have the same information. The process then saves time and limits confusion and mismatch among departments. Besides, the incorporation of the new system will aid in the reduction of human error since there is no replication of data. The availability of data in one location system makes it easy for the employees and the management team to access and use it with a lot of ease. It also enables the management to control the information that is very confidential for the hospital and should not be availed to the junior employees or other outsiders. The above system is very sophisticated and for it to work, the following assumptions must be made.

Cost Benefit Analysis

All workers are willing for change and ready to move from paperwork to the modernized integrated information systems.

The Valley Hospitals and Clinic have the necessary resources which they will be using to implement the new system.

All the stakeholders are for the idea, and they are fully supporting it and are fully for its success.

Workers are informed and can be able to use the new technology and other gadgets like computers ipads and iPods to analyzes data and give the relevant report which can propel the hospital to achieving its main objectives

However, the integration of the patient’s information comes with its disadvantages. When the patient’s information are kept in the centralized location in a computer or google drive, there might be interference due to internet security problems. The problems which are mainly associated with the new system include malware and social engineering attacks and redundancy of applications. These security risks mainly arise both from the internal and external environment. The gangs use the ransomware to interfere with the healthcare data. The ransomware encrypts servers containing the patient’s information and thus hold them on ransom for a large sum of money. These coupled with the regulations put forth by HITECH and HIPPA posits a challenge for the implementation. Valley hospital and clinic then should provide an efficient strategy for monitoring and protect the servers so that the patient’s data cannot be manipulated in any way. However, as the organization is undergoing transition, the management should not forget that paper work is still core. For that matter, they should not burn or dispose of them since references can be made when a misunderstanding arises.

It involves the determination of the costs associated with the project and its respective benefit hence a comparison can be made. For the analysis to be a success, the number of years and the interest earned should be taken into consideration (Saltelli, Chan, & Scott, 2000, p. 4). The accounting tool of analysis is based on the following principles which govern and control its operations. They include

For the analysis to be carried out, there must be a common unit of measurements.

The benefits are supposed to be measured by the market choices

Some measurement of benefits requires valuation of human life

The double counting of benefits and costs must be avoided at all costs

In case of valley hospital and clinic, the costs associated with this new project(implementation of modern integrated information system) can be given as shown below.

	Base Case	Sensitivity Analysis (Range)
System costs
Software (annual license)	$6,000	$3,500–$11,000
Implementation	$4,000
Support and maintenance	$ 3,000	$1,000-$7,000
Hardware (computers + network, hand held devices)	$12,000	$7,000-$24,000
Induced costs
Temporary productivity loss	$15,000	$6,000-$29,000
Total	$40,000

On the other hand, the benefits of the implementation process include

Annual Amount Before Implementation	Expected Savings  (Benefits) After Implementation
	Amount	Base Case  Estimated Saving	Benefits after implementation
Transcription	$10,600	30%	3180
Adverse drug events	$5,500	32%	1760
Drug utilization	$113,000	14%	15820
Laboratory utilization	$30,600	9.8%	2998.8
Radiology utilization	$49,100	15%	7365
Charge capture	$400,100	4%	16000
Billing errors	$8,600	80%	6880
Total	$617,500		$54003.8

The total costs are $40000 while the total benefits are 54003.8.Taking the project period to be 5year and the rate to be 10%

The present value of benefit is given as B (1+r/100)^-n

54003.8(1+10/100)^-5

= $33532.111

The present value of costs is given as B (1+r/100)^-n

=40000(1+10/100) ^-5

=$24836.8

Benefits cost ratio is given by

BCR=discounted benefits/discounted costs

=$33532.111/$24836.8

= 1.35

Given the costs and benefits above, we can be able to carry out the sensitivity analysis by the use of 5% and 7% respectively. Let’s take a period of 5 years

Benefits and costs		PVIF5%	PV	PVIF7%	PV
Costs	40000	0.7835	31340	0.71298	28519.2
Benefits	54003.8	0.7835	42311.98	0.71298	38,503.6
Net benefit	14003.8		10971.98		9984.4

At 5% discount, the net present value of the benefit is higher as compared to 7% rate as shown in the figure above.

The cash flow is 54003.8 while the period is 5years with a discount rate of 10%.if the profit was 54003.8 for the whole five years, and then the benefits per year will be( 54003.8/5=10801.66)

Year	Cash-flow	Accumulative cashflow	Number of years
1	10801.66	21603.32	1
2	10801.66	32404.98	2
3	10801.66	(7595.02/10801.66)*12	8 months
4	10801.66
5	10801.66

But the cost was 40000, then (40000-32404.98)=7595.02

Then the payback period for this project is 2 years and 8 months

The main risks which are associated with this project may include the technological risks, service delivery risks and organizational risks

Technological risks

These are risks arising as a result of employing new technology into the systems. There is high possibility that the systems may fail and interfere with the general flow of the information. If the management has not taken good measure for this, the valley hospital and clinic can lose data which results to chaos and confusions. Besides, some employees will be laid off with the new system.

Organizational risks

Some of the employees and senior management team who does not like the transition can mean to default the whole process. Therefore, the implementers and those who are concerned should take a keen look at the issues about implementation, monitoring, and evaluation.

Service delivery risks

Some employees might not have understood the whole modified information system hence lowers the service delivery. The management then should take a keen look at such issues and eventually make the necessary arrangements for training purposes for such employees.

Project

From the above analysis, the present value of the benefits is higher than the discounted costs. Therefore, it shows that the project is viable and should be accepted for implementation. While carrying out the sensitivity analysis at different rates, it is evident that the higher the interest rates, the lower the present values.so an optimum interest rate ra10% was chosen. The project when implemented should bring back the initial capital outlay after a period of 2 years and 8 months which is very viable.

The transition was not very easy since it demanded a high level of technology. Thanks to the implementers who work so hard towards achieving various objective within a period of five years.

The new technology in a modernized information system is good for the operational activities within the hospitals.it was embraced by the staff and almost accepted its implementation. However, some of the employees found it very hard to incorporate until they turned to be against it. The management then should set some strategies which shall enhance the incorporation of all employees in the systems.

Description	Period
Identification of the need for change and its analysis	4 months
Assessment of Staff Re-Engineering and the Interface of this Process with systems re-engineering	3months
Identification of the type of technology to be used in the hospital	3months
Development of the implementation layout and design	3 months
Training of staff and key stakeholders	5 months
Implementation of the new system	3 years
Tests and debug systems/evaluation	3 months
Review of  the process if an error as occurred	3 months

Conclusion

Transformation posits a challenge to every organization. Valley hospital is not left behind. When they were in the process of adopting the new information system, they faced some challenges but managed to overcome them. The implementation process was very successful as revealed by the cost-benefits analysis. When the sensitivity analysis was carried out by various exchange rates, the present value of benefits and costs were declining as interest rates increase. Thus, the project is prone to acquiring very small returns if at all the discount rate increases. However, by the use of BCR of 1.35, the project is viable to be implemented. 

References

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