HIT Systems Planning & Information Requirements Essay

HIT Systems Planning & Information Requirements Essay

HIT Systems Planning & Information Requirements Essay

As the manager of CTU Health Care Systems, you have done your research on three vendors to which you would like to outsource the implementation of the electronic health records (EHRs) for the clinics. As the manager, you have a number of critical decisions regarding the electronic medical record systems. At first, you thought you could either implement the existing EHR system at the other acute care organization or implement an entirely new EHR in both facilities.

You met with your staff, and after researching several companies that offered both products and services, you have solicited request for proposals (RFPs) from the following three companies:

• ABC Systems Consulting, the leading company in health care systems integration services, refused to bid on the systems integration required for bringing the current EHR system into the other organization. This was because of the risks and time requirements for designing, implementing, and testing the large number of interfaces required and the required time line for the completion of the project as identified by the client.
• XYZ EHR Systems proposed that its new, recently redeveloped EHR be implemented in both facilities, which included a computerized physician order entry (CPOE) module, standardized drug interaction alert functionality, and customizable clinical alert functionality. It estimated that the merged entity would get a much better price than $50 million for purchasing this new system. Unfortunately, XYZ was unable to provide evidence of successful installation of its recently redeveloped EHR system at a similarly large delivery network or anywhere.
• QRS EHR Systems, a leading provider of EHR systems for large acute care facilities, proposed that its EHR be installed in both acute care organizations with a $50–60 million price tag. QRS included a CPOE module, standardized drug interaction alert functionality, as well as evidence-based clinical alert functionality. QRS also had a physician office EHR system with an embedded patient registration system; however, QRS has had minimal experience with integrating the physician office registration system with the acute care (hospital) registration system—an integration feature that was a priority for this project based on the client’s information technology (IT) strategic plan.

The stakes surrounding your recommendation to the chief information officer (CIO) and chief executive officer (CEO) could not be higher in terms of dollars and your career.

Discuss the following in your paper of 3-4 pages, not including title page and reference page:

• What pieces of information are the most critical for your decision on selecting the right vendor?
• What other options, if any, do you have?
• What are the critical success factors in the case?
• What are your recommendations to the CIO and CEO based on the RFPs that you received?

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.