Essay on Apicha Community Health Center: Providing Quality, Affordable Care to Vulnerable Communities

Introduction

Apicha Community Health Center is one of the many local primary care organizations which play an instrumental role in the provision of quality and cost friendly care in the United States. Based in New York City Apicha seeks to provide affordable care to many vulnerable and underserved communities in the city boroughs and the east side Manhattan (Apicha News. 2012). The healthcare center offers comprehensive health services to the marginalized communities such as LGBT, HIV/AIDS, and other patients irrespective of the contemporary labelling with respect and dignity. The Apicha community health center in New York City offers culturally competent healthcare to the 8.623 million inhabitants of the city and the boroughs. Besides, the healthcare center is dedicated towards ensuring respect to patient privacy and it has trained its staff to be able to offer discreet medical care regardless of the patient gender, sexual orientation, and race.

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Health Care Information System Needs for Apicha

One of the major challenges facing Apicha Community Health Center is the high number of patient who require prolonged engagement. Communication with patients as well as the storage of the patient information is one of the primary objectives of Apicha community health center which is aimed at improving care quality, supporting follow up services and supporting physicians care decision making. Installing a next generation medical health record system will be instrumental towards improving overall care quality and patient information safety (Marcus, 2013).

Healthcare Information System

Practice Fusion Web-based Electronic Medical Record (EMR)

The Practice Fusion Web-based EMR software is an important information system that can significantly benefit Apicha Community Health Center physicians and the medical professionals by improving patient safety as well as the efficiency of Apicha Community Health Center to offer efficient care delivery to the large population of New York City and its boroughs.

Practice Fusion web-based electronic medical record capabilities and alignment to Apicha needs EMR. The Practice Fusion Web-based EMR system offers e-prescribing, medical charting, online booking, scheduling, and clinical decision support (Faiella, Casper, Bible, & Seifert, 2019). Practice Fusions EMR Company based in San Francisco and has been aggressive in the development and integration of the EMR systems in healthcare organizations. High connectivity, usability, use of data, and mobility are some of the advantages that Practice Fusion has been able to offer healthcare providers and Apicha Community Health Center in New York City can significantly benefit through such an investment.

Practice Fusion web-based EMR provides service specifications that are in alignment with Apicha Community Health Center information system's needs. The Practice Fusion web based EMR product offers high connectivity which is one of the instrumental advantages of creating a seamless healthcare environment (Marcus, 2013). Connectivity ensures that patients and physicians have access to information at the time of care and also helps to increase the active participation of the patient to access care. Practice Fusion EMR has been on the frontline in creating innovative products that ensure interconnectivity of the data and the healthcare providers. Practice Fusion EMR is an easy to learn and adopt product that ensures short time adoption and low vendor consultations on site. The ability of the healthcare providers to monitor the use of the information systems and also maximizes the overall user experience. Practice Fusion offers high mobility due to the cloud based systems that makes it easy for the healthcare providers and the patients to have access with the data without the necessity of the physical presence at the site. Lastly, Practice Fusion EMR is a data driven system which means that physicians and patients will have access to greater information which is consolidated together. The data driven data can be used to provide clinical diagnostic support to patients as well as improve the healthcare organizations research and internal policies to be data driven.

Initial and Maintenance Cost

Practice Fusion Web-based EMR is a cost friendly electronic health solution which offers very recent and effective EMR solutions with multiple applications at a very friendly price. This is due to the fact that the Practice Fusion is web-based and does not require setting up of any special equipment. Pricing changes based on the EHR model functionality. The absence of an onsite EHR deployment makes it highly cost efficient compared to the models that require on site technicians and investment in hardware for the storage and security of the EMR framework. Therefore, the only fee that Practice Fusion Web-based EMR charges is the subscription fee which ranges from $50 to $100 per user. This makes it extremely cost efficient and gives the individual healthcare organizations greater bargaining power. However, the budget for the implementation should be $100,000 which should cover for a whole year subscription and training of the healthcare providers.

Implementation Plan Timeline

The implementation timeline plays an instrumental role in the success and effectivity of the EMR system. The following table present the key steps towards the implementation of the Practice Fusion EMR.

Activity Description

• Planning and conception. This step is the initial step in EMR implementation and seeks to establish structure, governance, communication plan and the management of risk.
• Communication and Awareness Establishing an organization communication plan and establishing the training needs and plan for the staff.
• Assessment Assessing the business policy and business impacts. This is key in the evaluation of vendors offering the EMR and also the potential impacts to the healthcare organization.
• Operationalization Training and implementing the business strategy for the implementation of the EMR.
• Testing This implementation step involves the testing of the EMR functioning and ability to meet the healthcare organization needs.
• Transition The last step involves creating an ideal environment for its implementation.

The Strategy for Introducing Staff to the System, Getting Buy-In and Cooperation

Education and Awareness

One of the most efficient approach of introducing the Practice Fusion system will involve creating employee awareness and training to be able to handle the system and also guide the organization patients and other stakeholders towards the implementation of the system. Educating the stakeholders on the importance of the Practice Fusion Web-based EMR will be instrumental in increasing the buy in towards cooperation and acceptance of the EMR.

Potential Barriers in Implementing the System

1. Privacy Concerns

One of the primary drawbacks of the practice fusion web-based EMR is that it is at risk of hacking and other cyber incidences. The high number of people in the system and the vulnerabilities of using public network increases the risk of losing information to malicious people (Hamamura, Withy, & Hughes, 2017).

Solution. The primary option of protecting the system from malicious people is implementing the Intrusion Detection System and attribute based encryption to reduce access (Joshi & Finin, 2018). The IDS will be instrumental in protecting the patient health information by creating a system that supports the Practice Fusion from the loss of any information. Besides, the implementation of a protocol based access will ensure that only the authorized persons access information in certain levels.

2. Poor Healthcare Providers and Stakeholders Buy-In

The success of the Practice Fusion Web-based information system for Apicha Community Health Care will be faced by significant opposition due to the potential stakeholder's disagreement. All stakeholders can refuse to buy-in the EMR system which will require quick response (Hamamura et al., 2017).

Solution. One of the most essential solutions in the EMR system implementation is creating prior awareness to the healthcare provider stakeholders. Prior awareness and education of the potential benefits will be instrumental in convincing the stakeholders which will reduce the overall resistance and encourage greater support for the EMR.

3. Time and Training Challenges

The implementation of the EMR system is time consuming and can negatively affect the delivery of care within the Community Health Center (Hamamura et al., 2017). It is important to ensure that the project takes the least time and training does not inconvenience the overall activities at Apicha.

Solution. The primary approach of overcoming the time and training challenge is through the use of on-site training and orientation services. On-site training and implementation will reduce the need for extra time and also the inconvenience caused by the implementation.

References

Apicha News. (2012). APICHA Community Health Center - Investing in Our Future. Apicha News. Volume 17, Number 1 Summer/Fall 2012. Retrieved from https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/1660132/Apicha_September2017/Pdf/APICHA_NEWS-2012-final-web.pdf

Faiella, A. S., Casper, K. A., Bible, L. J., & Seifert, J. L. (2019). Implementation and use of an electronic health record in a charitable community pharmacy. Journal of the American Pharmacists Association. Retrieved from https://www.japha.org/article/S1544-3191(18)30567-3/abstract

Hamamura, F. D., Withy, K., & Hughes, K. (2017). Identifying barriers in the use of electronic health Records in Hawai 'i. Hawai'i Journal of Medicine & Public Health, 76(3 Suppl 1), 28. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5375011/

Joshi, M., Joshi, K., & Finin, T. (2018, July). Attribute Based Encryption for Secure Access to Cloud Based EHR Systems. In 2018 IEEE 11th International Conference on Cloud Computing (CLOUD) (pp. 932-935). IEEE. Retrieved from https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8457907/

Marcus, J. R. (2013). A web-based electronic health record system for national surveillance. Online journal of public health informatics, 5(1). Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3692859/

Reisman, M. (2017). EHRs: the challenge of making electronic data usable and interoperable. Pharmacy and Therapeutics, 42(9), 572. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5565131/