SYSTEM-WIDE ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORD REPLACEMENT
Organization
Scripps is an integrated health care centre located in San Diego, California. It is a private, nonprofit organization that is committed to providing high quality health care services to people. Scripps is equipped with the best doctors found in San Diego and is also one of the top ranked healthcare centers in the region. It is worth noting that Scripps is also committed to providing wellness screenings and preventive services among other services. Scripps health was ranked by the United States News and World Report as the best in San Diego for offering programs such as gynecology, gastroenterology, diabetes, and heart care programs. It was also ranked in the nation’s top seven hospitals. Some of its best healthcare services include geriatrics, orthopedics, gynecology, pulmonology, endocrinology and diabetes, heart surgery and cardiology. Such services are among the best in the region thus increasing demand. Most people have realized the value of their services thus owing to the large number of clients it serves (“Scripps Health Plan,” 2016). Due to the large number of clientele, the health care center need to upgrade its system to ensure that it runs smoothly without encountering significant challenges. Scripps needs to take measures to ensure that it efficiently records and stores data.
Scripps has been offering outstanding services for a long time, such services are a testament to how dedicated it is to patients. It also shows the exceptional skills of nurses, physicians and other workers who take care of patients daily. Scripps was ranked among the best top 45 metropolitan hospitals with a population of more than one million people. The health care is dedicated upon building a delivery system for this new era to ensure that the services provided are the best. Such a role can be challenging and exciting at the same time. Employees of Scripps are dedicated to accept change and to embrace it for a better tomorrow. The employees understand the need to work while aiming to incorporate new technologies in the healthcare center to improve the services offered. The executive management team is also committed to offering the necessary support to ensure that the right techniques and appropriate technology is incorporated. On the other hand, employees undergo vigorous training incase new technology is introduced into the center. Today, Scripps is changing to ensure that it is effective in meeting the needs of the patients (“Scripps Health Plan,” 2016). It is also working hard to ensure that it reduces the cost of the services provided by also improving access to different communities. The strategies it takes helps it to give value to the patients served.
In the recent past, several medical breakthroughs have been witnessed. Such breakthroughs have occurred in areas such as advanced equipment, new treatment, and more effective medications. Scripps partners with patients and empowers them to ensure that they monitor their health by incorporating digital advancements. The clinical staff and physicians of Scripps are engaged in treating patients using such new technology. It is worth noting that Scripps is dedicated to meet the unique needs of all its patients (“Scripps Health Plan,” 2016). As a result, the organization is willing to incorporate new technologies as long as they lead to improved provision of services. This paper aims at discussing ways in which Scripps can replace the legacy electronic record systems with one enterprise electronic medical record system.
Competition
To always stay ahead of competitors, Scripps should ensure that incorporates the latest technology in various operation. The technology should also be cost effective and efficient in delivering services to clients. There is a lot of competition in San Diego among healthcare systems since they all work hard to capture clients living in the lucrative economic environment of growing uncertainty as well as the shrinking reimbursement. In the northern region, the population found there is better-insured and wealthier as compared to other regions. Other competitors of Scripps also target such regions to ensure that they also gain from them. With such characteristics of the targeted population, it can be noted that embracing any new technology that can help to provide services effectively can be economical in the long run however expensive it might be to install at first. Strategies for different healthcare providers vary in terms of the way they compete for the share of the market while ensuring they meet the provisions of the Affordable Care Act. For instance, the health system of California University has taken measures to expand its services in La Jolla. Jacobs Medical Center also aims at providing children’s and women’s services, cancer care, cardiovascular care, and specialty surgery among others. The system increased outpatient services in other parts in Scripps, Encinitas, and Vista Ranch which feed referrals to the hospital located in La Jolla. The hospital in La Jolla is worth $700 million (Lisa, 2013).
On the other hand, Sharp Healthcare looks to expand its services in wealthier regions of San Diego. Such areas include North Inland, North Coastal, and North Central. Instead of establishing new hospitals in such areas, sharp opts to expand outpatient clinics that are a major threat to Scripps. Sharp opened new outpatient clinics in regions such as Sorrento Mesa area. Scripps faces intense competition in La Jolla which is its major market. Just like its competitors, Scripps aims at increasing outpatient services (Lisa, 2013).
Electronic Health Records
Gettinger & Csatari (2012), posit that the widespread use of Electronic Health Records among other technologies helps improve various services such as payments, healthcare delivery, and improving the working conditions of healthcare practitioners. Such technologies are quite beneficial in fields such as health information management. Use of the technology allows managers of health services to make good records of occurrences, the facilities available, the number of people being served, and the amount of money allocated to different activities. Over a short time, the large amounts of money invested in the acquisition and integration of EHR usually produce significant changes in the health information management department. Physical medical records are soon being gotten rid of due to the enormous losses encountered. Such records also lead to inaccuracy of data and inefficiency in carrying out various operations. Stringent regulatory directives are being used in most health care facilities because demands are evolving. As a result, the tasks taken by health information professionals vary from one health facility to another. Driving change in an organization may be faced with a lot of ambiguity which can be overcome by implementing the changes themselves (Mountain, 2016). Through such proactive efforts, the health information management can be in a position to define its roles and objectives while still delivering high quality services in the modern world of technology.
In spite of the progress made to replace paper records with digital records, Health information resource management is still highly decentralized. For instance, health resource management has managed health records at organizational level, while other types of data and information (both operational and clinical), are managed at functional levels. Such information may also be managed at departmental level without guidelines that reflect good practices or enterprise policies. EHRs have significantly changed the framework for health information practices. In the world of today, health data records should be linked with other factors such as patients and providers of health care. It, therefore, means that additional sources of data should be combined with EHR data so as to support the expanded application of HER data. With a lot of information, it is quite difficult to prevent an organization’s ability to enforce, implement or to oversee standardization (Mountain, 2016). Due to that, data is managed to improve levels of accessibility, completeness, and quality.
Such medical complexities are mainly magnified in health systems with multiple systems containing affiliated networks. Often facilities are integrated and absorbed into systems. However, it is worth noting that processes and resources are not rationalized. Due to that, providers of such services are left with a bunch of inconsistent policies and practices that breed inefficiency, redundancy and risks. To connect silos, to enable standardization, to reduce duplication, and to enable improved coordination of health care, health organizations need to address the antiquated and decentralized health information management models by beginning the process of transitioning to an effective and smooth running comprehensive human information resource management platform (Mountain, 2016).
According to (Gettinger & Csatari, 2012), the quality gains and efficiency from EHRs as well as other technologies are contingent on enforcement of different operational policies and processes that address issues such as efficacy, security of data, integrity, and accessibility throughout the life cycle of its operation. Without changing the structure of an organization, the EHR technology cannot produce desired results. Today, few providers have a good understanding and a dynamic inventory of characteristics, access requirements, uses, data sources, and flow of information. Lack of sufficient information on data denies providers the opportunity to enforce and to establish consistent policies across their organization (Mountain, 2016). Due to that, digital systems may continue facing the same inefficiencies as well as redundancies if other measures of improving services are not put in place.
Transitioning from traditional health information management to enterprise health information resource management is a journey which takes preparation, a vision and excellent execution. While implementing such changes, it is important for Scripps Health to determine their destiny, the route that should be taken, the support needed, the people on the team, and the unexpected events that should be planned for in advance. While putting such measures in place, the health center will see improvements in overall usability, efficacy, information quality, and integrity. For instance, as the implementation of EHR continues, it is neither necessary nor cost effective to have onsite storage of records. The following strategy can be done to eliminate the file room (Mountain, 2016):
- Applying and developing policies to get rid of obsolete records.
- Relocating and scanning the accessed paper records to ensure that they are readily available.
- Scanning stored paper records.
- Scanning the paper records that are frequently accessed to ensure that they are readily available.
- Outsourcing heavy processing functions.
References
Gettinger, A. & Csatari, A. (2012). Transitioning from a Legacy EHR to a Commercial, Vendor-supplied, EHR. Applied Clinical Informatics, 3(4), 367-376. http://dx.doi.org/10.4338/aci-2012-04-r-0014
