Information System Project Management
A project management information system is the coherent organization of all the information needed by a particular organization to carry out a particular project. This includes the use of information technology to compile, organize, and disseminate information in a simple and understandable way to the organization’s members. A good information system streamlines service delivery in the organization. The health care industry in the United States an other regions globally have been known to have insufficient or have an apparent lack of an effective information system to manage their projects. This is evidenced by the large hemorrhage of funds in the form of growing expenditure in the sector with the deterioration of the quality of service delivery. This paper will focus on discussing how a proper information system can remedy this as seen in the case of Partners HealthCare Services (PHS).
In 2009, the U.S expenditure on the heath sector was $2.4 trillion in spite of there being 98,000 deaths. Studies on the matter concluded that the deaths could have been prevented as some of the deaths were attributed to errors in the field. These errors were not as a result of incompetence on the part of the medical practitioners, but rather the consequences of the inherent intellectual complexity of heath care taken as a whole and medical care environment that has not adequately structured to help clinicians avoid mistakes or to improve their decision-making practice systematically. Therefore, medical errors by practitioners and health care givers indeed affected the quality of care patients received. This shows the clear need for an integrated information system in the health care sector.
With the aforementioned issues affecting patient performance, a comprehensive system such as PHS is required to ensure efficiency in service delivery. Partners HealthCare Services (PHS) was founded in 1994 as a result of the merging of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital to become an integrated health care delivery system. In 2009, the system had 6,300 primary care and specialty physicians; 11 hospitals specialty facilities, community health centers, other health care related entities and an affiliation with Harvard Medical School. Their system began as an early version of electronic medical records developed in-house and dubbed Longitudinal Medical Record. The success of this system can be attributed to the three distinguishing features that it was built on. These are: stability in executive management and consistency in the endeavor for the same strategic vision of the role of IT in PHS, recruitment of extemporary talent, and their engagement in fundamental positions in the organization, placement of executive level positions within major business units and development, implementation, and upkeep of an enterprise-level architectural approach to It selection and use. As a show of their system’s efficiency, the 2009 electronic medical record’s team maintained a centralized digital record on more than 4.6 million patients. It was augmented in real but data, textual comments, and artifacts.
From the beginning, the organization’s pioneers recognized the value of research and development of IT-enablement of its core business processes. Organizational units were commissioned to investigate; how to improve clinical informatics infrastructure, the value of return on investment in the medical electronic records, how developments in IT could transform health care delivery, how PHS patients responded to prescribed medical therapies and the effects of the electronic system on care delivery. After the conclusion of the investigations, the system was recommended as cost-effective and improving the quality of services. Therefore, it was a viable and a reliable alternative to traditional are systems.
Information management in the system is based on three pivotal capabilities. They include: the means to collect and consolidate into an integrated digital record all the information about patients over time, decision support process that support medical practitioners in making the best recommendations for medical therapies on the basis of the likely benefits at the lowest cost possible and knowledge management process that derived the best practices from the observable outcomes of the recommended medical therapies , and use these therapies to inform on ongoing delivery of services and reform of existing ones. A patient’s medical history includes treatments that work and those that don’t, drugs they are allergic to and their genetic predisposition. This data alongside other logistical support from the system help the practitioner provide the best health care while saving on cost thus killing the proverbial two birds with one system. Therefore proper record keeping, protection, and use of a reliable system is essential in ensuring that medical practitioners easily monitor
I would also recommend that the U.S government adopts the PHS model of health care delivery. To do so, it needs to invest heavily in research and development of IT and its application in the healthcare industry. The second phase would start a massive information digitization processes as well the development, adoption, and maintenance of a centralized integrated information system based on the discussed principles. Such a system will work toward the management of organizational activities in a simple and easily implementable way. The final phase should be a mass sensitization campaign for the public. For it to be fully effective, it requires an enormous investment and an extended period, perhaps a decade or more. Nevertheless, although such an investment is costly, its benefits will transend to many more.
Indeed, as of 2009, the U.S health care had been characterized by significant expenditure with a reducing quality in the services provided. This is evidence by the 90, 000 death toll attributed to medical errors that could have been prevented. The errors can be blamed on the lack of an information management system to cater for the sector. Information management systems have proved effective before in health care as in the case of Partners HealthCare Services; a health care organization started in 1994. It was formed as a result of a merger and has grown considerably to cater for over 4.6 million patients. Their information system has three distinguishing features that have propelled it to efficiency. These are stability in executive management, employment of talented individuals, and adoption of enterprise level architecture. The organization has pioneered in research in IT in association with health care delivery. From this, they have built their system on three capabilities, namely: data collection about patients, a support system for the practitioners and therapy comparison and improvement. These capabilities enable the system cut on cost while improving the quality of the care given to patients. As a result of the apparent benefits of an integrated information management system in the healthcare industry, I would recommend the government put in place measure to set up country-wide. This will require a lot of funding and patience as significant results will take time.
