Information System Briefing, Term Paper Example

Organizations associated with healthcare needs to acquire up to date technological trends for delivering patient care at the optimal level. Medical information systems developed for supporting healthcare, facilitate organizations to align with best practices and quality and to make these health organizations successful in the market. However, acquiring and maintaining information systems can be a difficult task along with its alignment with the goals and objectives of the organization. Moreover, along with the alignment with organizational objectives, involvement of all stakeholders in the implementation of information systems is vital for understanding the purpose and benefits. Likewise, customization of system design is a requirement for supporting organizational goals and objectives, which can be a complex task.

In order to acquire information systems, the first aspect is the starting point. Likewise, every organization has to address the starting point of information system acquisition differently. The starting point can be first allocate a task to a team that will analyze and define the type of information system is required. However, a consensus must be created before developing a business case that will be presented in front of the stakeholders of the organization. Employees associated with information system design must be incorporated for illustrating all aspects of the information system before the deployment or acquisition. Likewise, after the design, system implementation process takes place including a series of stages including hardware acquisition, software acquisition, user preparation, personal hiring and training, site preparation, data preparation, installation, testing, start-up and user testing (Stair, Reynolds, n.d). After figuring out the type and design, the next step involves cost/benefit analysis that includes expenditures and cost required for deployment, acquisition and maintenance of the information system. These detailed steps along with cost/benefit analysis will ensure that the acquisition of information systems is a correct and justified decision. Likewise the presentations must tie with key organizational objectives.

The purpose is to automate organizational processes and procedures to complete assigned jobs accurately and easily. However, acquisition may contain one or more than one type of information systems that may serve their tasks in different functions containing dissimilar process, procedures and routines. Likewise, organizations must take a holistic approach to address issues where automation matters the most. Accordingly, implementing information systems in functions where the workload is high is most important and will deliver value, as the output and performance will be augmented. For instance, in case of a healthcare organization, one primary objective would be to enhance the process of patient treatment and care. This process needs to be automated for treating the patient as early as possible. Moreover, associated documentations must also be processed at the same time. Moreover, less human interaction can also be addressed during the workflow of several processes. Similarly, information systems must support electronic medical records that are defined as per the national alliance of health information technology as “An electronic record of health related information on an individual that conforms to nationally recognized interoperability standards and that can be created, managed and consulted by authorized clinicians and staff across more than one healthcare organization” (Zaleski, n.d ). Apart from considering the support of EMR, certain regulations must also be addressed to conduct online processing of patient records. For instance, Healthcare Insurance Portability and Accountability (HIPAA) Act of 1996 regulation is a health law, as it demonstrates the protection and privacy of patient information. In summary, HIPAA provides three primary outcomes i.e. To guard and enhance the rights of customers, to enhance the quality of healthcare in the region, to enhance the value and competence of health care delivery (Sullivan, n.d ).

The task of stakeholders is to identity the information system acquisition process that will best suit the organization. However, stakeholders can be an external or internal employee or a trade partner. We can categorize stakeholders in to separate sections i.e. Primary stakeholders and Secondary stakeholders. (Sims 2003) Primary stakeholders are most probably internal staff or members of the board having a direct stake in the organization and its objectives. Whereas, secondary stakeholders show interest associated with ‘public stake’ or \special stake’ in the organizational objectives. Likewise, patients of the healthcare organization are considered as secondary stakeholders who are aligned with the acquisition of information systems. However, primary stakeholders are considered as vital because they are the investors and bear all the financial issues for this acquisition. However, before investing funds, they must be sure that the investment is according to the required objective.

References

STAIR, R.M. and REYNOLDS, G.F., Principles of Information Systems (with Printed Access Card) Course Technology.

SULLIVAN, J. n.d, HIPAA: A Practical Guide to the Privacy and Security of Health Data American Bar Association.

SIMS, R.R., 2003. Ethics and corporate social responsibility: why giants fall Westport, Conn.: Praeger.

ZALESKI, J. n.d, Integrating Device Data into the Electronic Medical Record: A Developer’s Guide to Design and a Practitioner’s Guide to Application Wiley-VCH.