South East Medical Center Case Study

The computerized system allows health care centers achieve efficiency and effectiveness when it comes to the health care operations. Information is quickly relayed to the necessary parties and data entry has been made easier through this system. Abramson & Kaushal, (2012) state that, there is a reduced and also elimination of duplication of work since data is easily retrieved through the hospital's database system and consequently used while administering diagnosis to patients. The use of the digital system has also enabled physicians and nurses to save on time since there is less paperwork, filing, and storage to be completed. Although the digital data entry system has allowed health centers to achieve efficiency and improved quality, there is the tendency for nurses among other staff to be complacent at their duty stations since the system automatically retrieves information need.

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Complacency may lead to failure, and major side effects may be faced in the health centers (Abraham & Kaushal 2012). For instance, this may be experienced in a situation whereby, data was entered into the system regarding a patients' health condition. However, the nurse on duty wrongly entered the data entry under the patient's name in such a way that, the conditions of two different patients were interchanged. In case such a patient makes a revisit to the hospital, and due to ease of retrieval of information, the nurse in charge does not cross-examine the condition of the patient but blindly uses data entered to administer diagnosis, the patient may end up being given the wrong medication. In the end, it may lead to health deterioration of the patient. Georgiou, Prgomet, Paoloni, Creswick, Hordern, Walter, & Westbrook, (2013) posit that an integrated system acts as a backup to the knowledge that the physicians and health attendees have. They should make use of their expertise and practical skills to avoid failures and errors. Systems are developed to support the managerial and clinical information and processes employed in hospitals. Humans should not be entirely dependent on it since systems cannot automatically correct errors that have been entered into the database system. Failure to one point of the system may result in continued failure to the rest of the process if it is not corrected in advance.

Physicians information and expertise are also needed while attending to patients in hospitals. However, emphases should be made on the quality of service administered since it will lead to improved success to the hospital at large. Quality over quantity should always be made a priority during the incorporation of Electronic Health Systems. Focusing on quality rather than quantity will save on costs incurred while administering services to patients. The culture of attending to many patients without giving them quality service may lead to adverse effects such as poor service delivery and increased cases of patients re-admission, which tarnishes the goodwill of the health center. This may result in a bad customer attendance and reduced profit as well. In addition to this, it is economic productive to focus on a specific number of patients and administer quality service to them, rather than have a high turnover of patients while delivering poor services to them. The latter case comes in hand with increased implications, which may affect the overall performance of the hospital. It becomes a bit hectic to liaise with nurses and other health professionals in the tracking of patients health progress even after discharge since the turnover does not add up the demands (Georgiou, et al. 2013). However, when the number of patients to be handled is manageable, it becomes accommodative to follow up on their progress as well as offer efficient care delivery.

While incorporating an electronic health system, the management should ensure that the system is in line with the administrations goal and mission. Practically, if a particular system adopted by a particular institution was aimed at reducing cost and increase efficiency, any other form of services bought or contracted should bear the same characteristics. If new systems are adopted and are not in line with the institutions' goals, it may end up disrupting the entire program as well as leading to a slow progress (Abramson & Kaushal 2012). Systems should be integrated to offer quality care and patient satisfaction. Therefore, it is important for the management to ensure that the incorporation of a particular system enables the health center to be more effective and efficient in their operations.

There are cases whereby the number of patients attended to, and services offered in the hospital may overwhelm the system used. In such a case, it is recommendable for an additional system to be outsourced to improve the quality of work offered. Radley, Wasserman, Olsh, Shoemaker, Spranca, & Bradshaw, (2013), outsourcing of services helps to save on time and increases expertise service in a particular department. Besides this, institutions may also choose to outsource other systems if there is a new kind of challenge experienced in the center and the current regime is not updated to handle it (Radley et al. 2013). It may include services such internet services among other facilities. One may choose to outsource internet connectivity to health centers in order to ease communication between patients and physician via the hospitals website.

Conclusion

New system adoption should be thoroughly scrutinized before any organization adopts them. It will help in harmonizing all activities as well as creating ease for service delivery thus improving the outcome and realizing the goal of the institution.

References

Abramson, E. L., & Kaushal, R. (2012). Computerized provider order entry and patient safety. Pediatric Clinics of North America, 59(6), 1247-1255.

Georgiou, A., Prgomet, M., Paoloni, R., Creswick, N., Hordern, A., Walter, S., & Westbrook, J. (2013). The effect of computerized provider order entry systems on clinical care and work processes in emergency departments: a systematic review of the quantitative literature. Annals of emergency medicine, 61(6), 644-653.

Radley, D. C., Wasserman, M. R., Olsho, L. E., Shoemaker, S. J., Spranca, M. D., & Bradshaw, B. (2013). Reduction in medication errors in hospitals due to adoption of computerized provider order entry systems. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 20(3), 470-476.