Free Essay Sample on Modernizing Hammington's Healthcare Services: A Necessity

Introduction

Over the past years, the way of service administration has been diversifying in many sectors, especially the healthcare sector. Therefore, the need for change in operation and service administration in Hammington’s healthcare facility is essential. Healthcare services given to any individual should always be satisfactory and assist them in getting better. Moreover, if an individual receives appropriate healthcare services, they will wish to visit the facility in the future if they encounter any difficulties in their health conditions (Hippisley-Cox et al.,2016). This paper analyzes the various aspects that might necessitate a change in the facility, the multiple factors that might directly influence the facility's growth, and insights on how the difference might be implemented.

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Implementing the change that incorporates electronic health records will educate healthcare practitioners on the safe use of technology in their practice. The electronic system's use might lead to effectiveness in the service provision in all health facility departments. Therefore, the point of service provision helps minimize errors that could have occurred in the other paperwork system (Hippisley-Cox et al.,2016). The facility's proposed change is converting the operating services of documentation of records of patients from the current paperwork to electronic service.

Moreover, the change entails more of making less of paper-work: services offered in the Hammington health facility to entail more of an electronic system (Hippisley-Cox et al.,2016). Nonetheless, it is not only the patient services offered in the facility to patients to be considered but also other systems like invoices and the health facility's supplies to be operationalized through the electronic system.

The need for electronic health records

The advancement of technology is diversifying the ways of operations in healthcare facilities. The use of electronic systems is critical since it ensures quality service provision. The need to establish electronic health records in Hammington's health facility will provide the clients with high safety and security levels of their pathologies and their medications (Hippisley-Cox et al.,2016). Moreover, using an electronic health record system will maximize the various departments' coordination in the healthcare facility.

A physician can easily access diagnosis results from the laboratory of a given client and reciprocate the pharmacy department's easy access to the prescription of the necessary drugs to the client. Also, the electronic health record system might be essential in the healthcare facility since it helps minimize errors prone to occur in the service provision (Hippisley-Cox et al.,2016). Documentation of the information in the electronic system, this might greatly help in minimizing errors.

Moreover, the electronic health record system's necessity will help in the effectiveness even of a client's billing process since all information of a patient is aggregated and, therefore, not prone to errors. Thus, the whole electronic health record system might help appeal to the patient and positively impact its reputation. Also, the electronic health record system's use might help reduce the struggle of sending letters of appointments to clients and preferably using the electronic system (Hippisley-Cox et al.,2016). Nevertheless, electronic health records might help in the level of preparedness of the facility to disaster management. Also, the electronic health system will help health practitioners in comprehensive consultation, which will be fast and efficient and also guide them in decision-making; thus, the ultimate service provided to the clients will be instrumental.

The goal of using EHR

In many fields, change in operation is not always executed for the sake of only changing routine but the impact of the change to the sector. The ultimate objective of implementing a digitalized health system is to improve service delivery to all the Hammington health facilities (Hippisley-Cox et al.,2016). The ultimate goal is to see the improvement of the healthcare system operations that are not currently badly off but the betterment of the services and the competitiveness of the facility locally and internationally.

The goal of the electronic health record system's execution is to maximize the number of clients attended at ago. Since the system does not involve paperwork, it will be super-fast to participate in a single client in very minimal time; thus, many patients can be attended to by the healthcare workers without fatigue (Hippisley-Cox et al.,2016). Therefore, the electronic health record system's execution will help immensely in raising the standards of Hammington's health facility.

The Vision and Philosophy of Effecting EHR

The vision is to make Hammington’s healthcare facility to be a world-class service provider. The vision of implementing the change in service delivery from a paper-work system to an electronic record system is to see the diversification of healthcare. The main philosophy of the electronic health record is to

The theoretical model that relates to EHR

In healthcare practice, two theoretical models relate to the technology used to facilitate and regulate service provision in the healthcare system. The models are informed of acts that regulate the use of technology in service provision. The first act is the HIPAA act which is enforced to secure the health information of a client. The act mainly controls the dispensation of a patient’s information without their consent. The restriction of information dispensation restricts information of private health information of a patient to the patient and some extent the insurance companies only to check the billings (Lincke, 2015). However, many insurance companies are allowed to access information on their patient bills. Also, the companies are restricted from sharing PHI patients with any other individual or company.

The other theoretical model, which is and is very directly related to the electronic health record, is the HITECH Act. It is the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act. This act aims to ensure that services in the healthcare sector are performed effectively through information technology (Lincke, 2015). The act regulates all activities that are conducted in health facilities that pertain to technological use. The act is very relevant since it also provides insights guiding matters that relate to emergency services. It also recommends various ways in which a health facility can avoid errors while using technology to conduct its activities (Lincke, 2015). Thus, both the HIPAA and HITECH acts stipulate various guidelines while using technology in the healthcare systems. The shows are fundamental since they will guide the execution process of the enforcement of the electronic health records in the Hammington health facility.

The barriers to EHR implementation (Organizational and individual)

Organizational

In implementing electronic health records in the facility, some general challenges are likely to be encountered. The first challenge that could be faced is the cost of implementation of the whole system. The purchase of the devices, both software and hardware, could be very costly. Also, in price, all the staff operating the system are required to be trained (Meinert, 2015). Nevertheless, there is a maintenance cost that will be necessary to ensure the system works effectively.

The other factor that could be challenging in the implementation of electronic health is data transfer. The transfer of data from the current paperwork to the electronic system might be very cumbersome. Since the previous documentation of the data mentioned above is in the form of paperwork, it might be very time-consuming to transfer every patient file to the (Meinert, 2015). .Another challenge of implementing the electronic health system is the training of every staff member that will use the electronic health record will be both time-consuming and might use a lot of resources. Since each health practitioner must be trained on the operations of the system training each of them, a lot of time and resources might be consumed.

Individual

Apart from the general organization challenges faced in implementing the electronic health record system, a few individual challenges might be encountered. The first challenge is the resistance of health practitioners to the implementation of the system. In the system's performance, some practitioners might not perceive the idea of the efficacy of the system. Some of the staff might not embrace the technological system well since they may lack knowledge of the technology (Meinert, 2015). Therefore, they might not perceive the concept effectively. The other challenge is the speculated ineffective communication between the service provider that is the technical expert with the healthcare worker on the system's progress and effectiveness.

Factors that might influence the need for Electronic Health Records

The use of electronic health records is influenced by several factors that are equally important to be put into consideration. Patients' and health practitioners’ characteristics are one of the factors that might affect the need to use the electronic health system. The skillfulness of using technological applications might influence a health practitioner to use electronic health records (Meade et al.,2018). Also, the experience of using technology in practice might affect a health practitioner's use the electronic health records. A positive previous experience might influence to use of the technological system.

Another factor that might influence electronic health records in healthcare practice is the nature of the client's information. For instance, if a patient has a condition that requires much documentation, the most effective way to document the information is in the electronic system (Meade et al.,2018). On the contrary, the electronic system's use may not be useful if the type of information is inclined to a social nature. For example, the documentation of psychosocial issues might be irrelevant in electronic health records.

The factors that may influence the readiness for implementation of EHR

In the implementation of an electronic health records system, readiness is a crucial determinant. The readiness aspect is hinged on the ability of health practitioners. The first factor that might influence willingness is the extent or level of health practitioners (Meade et al.,2018). For instance, if most health practitioners in the health facility are computer literate, then the facility can be considered ready to adapt to the electronic system. Another factor is the availability of training personnel. If the facility has training personnel or professionals in the information technology department, then the facility can be considered ready for the system (Meade et al.,2018). A final factor is the availability of technological infrastructure. If the facility avails the infrastructure, then the facility can be considered ready to implement the health record system.

The availability of resources that may support the EHR (internal and external)

The most important resource that could be of importance when implemented in the change is the human resource. The human resources vary from the service providers to the installation of services, but the primary human resource is the health practitioners who are to be hands-on in implementation. Thus, skillful and willing to learn health practitioners can be significant in implementing (Ajami et al.,2016).