Competitiveness and Performance Effectiveness for Health Care IT Systems

Fundamental Responsibilities of the Chief Information Officer and The Chief Technology officer within Health Care Organizations 

The Chief Information Officer (CIO) 

The Chief Information Officer (CIO) is the senior most Information Technology person within an organization. In some organizations, the job position itself takes the title of an IT director (Lorenzi, 2002). The CIO is responsible for overseeing the people, processes, and technologies within healthcare organizations while ensuring that they have the capacity to deliver outcomes that support the objectives if the organization (Lorenzi, 2002).

Responsibilities of the CIO:

Assessing both the current and future information and technology needs within a healthcare organization.

Developing required standards and processes that are needed for the protection of information systems against cyber-attacks.

Providing leadership for the Information Technology (IT) department.

Communicating strategic recommendation with regard to implementation, security and operations issues to senior leadership.

Ensuring that service level agreements are met.

Assessing new technologies and system enhancements.

Overseeing all software integrations.

The Chief Technology Officer (CTO) 

The primary role of the CTO within a healthcare organization is the overseeing of the current technological needs of the organizations and the creation of the relevant policies (Lorenzi, 2002). The CTO also develops and leads the technology roadmap and infrastructure strategy in alignment with the organization's objectives while in partnership with the CIO in establishing the overall IT strategy and vision (Lorenzi, 2002). It is a requirement for the CTO to have a deep understanding the current information technology needs in healthcare including mobile and cloud computing technologies (Lorenzi, 2002).

The Responsibilities of the CTO: 

Provide the much-needed leadership for strategic and tactical planning for all network-related activities, integrate multiple vendors for the provision of services as well as negotiate contracts.

Monitor systems capacity and utilization while providing capacity planning for peripherals including devices, storage, and servers.

Analyze, evaluate, and recommend telecommunications, network, security and any relevant technology architecture.

Design and build the strategic information technology roadmap in support of clinical, strategic and financial missions.

The CIO and the CTO can utilize their skills within a healthcare institution by encouraging the systemwide adoption of Electronic Medical Records (EMR) to track identify, monitor and improve the quality of care (Arroyo, Ferreira & Oliveira, 2011). David Dully, the Vice President of Information Technology and the CTO of Baptist health in Jacksonville Florida was in charge of the hospital's successful systemwide adoption of Electronic Medical Records (EMR). This is an area in which both the CTO and the CIO can exercise their expertise that can lead to both patient and employee satisfaction.

Emerging Technologies in Health Care 

Computerized Physician Order Entry System (CPOE) 

CPOE systems in healthcare organizations have been designed to replace the manual paper-based ordering systems by allowing clinicians to electronically write patient orders, maintain online medical records for future referencing and review changes made to an order (Arroyo, Ferreira & Oliveira, 2011) . The major benefits of CPOE systems in health care institutions include the productions of clearly typed medical orders which have the potential to reduce the number of medical errors produced and also helps in the decision-making process which can improve medication safety which in turn results in enhanced patient outcomes. According to Shi (2014), when CPOE systems are configured correctly, they have the ability to improve patient safety and care as well as provide increased efficiency in the provision of medical orders. A study conducted by the American Medical Informatics Association found out that orders that were processed through the use of a CPOE system lowered the chances of an error occurring by forty-eight percent (Shi, 2014). The findings of the study also estimated that 17.4 million errors could be avoided each year based on the degree of CPOE implementation in healthcare institutions.

Telehealth 

Telehealth can be defined as the use of information and communication technologies in the delivery of information and health-related services that support administrative activities, health education and patient care (Arroyo, Ferreira & Oliveira, 2011). Telehealth is vital in support of safe nursing practices in that it improves access to healthcare and health-related services while reducing the costs associated with transportation, increasing the number of patients in obtaining care, better access to health specialists, increased patient engagement and also better care quality as well as improved health outcomes (Arroyo, Ferreira & Oliveira, 2011). Telehealth has evolved over the years and is being used in areas where the physician to patient ratios are insufficient or in regions where there aren’t adequate medical care specialists available to as to meet the population needs (Arroyo, Ferreira & Oliveira, 2011). Telehealth is used in both urban and rural settings that are underserved so as to improve service health service delivery.

Telehealth has the ability to increase opportunities for clinicians while reducing health care systems costs while offering convenience to patients. Telehealth also has the ability to reduce the time spent by patients walking for long distances and waiting times in the emergency rooms so as to receive health care services (Arroyo, Ferreira & Oliveira, 2011). Lack of access to medical specialists is not just a rural problem in the United States, but patients in urban centers are also underserved. Telemedicine has the ability to support safe nursing practices by improving healthcare outcomes, enhancing communication between patients and physicians, reducing secondary complications and improving equity in the access to quality care (Arroyo, Ferreira & Oliveira, 2011). Telehealth has evolved over the years and is being used in areas where the physician to patient ratios are insufficient or in regions where there aren’t adequate medical care specialists available to as to meet the population needs (Arroyo, Ferreira & Oliveira, 2011). Telehealth is used in both urban and rural settings that are underserved so as to improve service health service delivery.

Health Care Methods to Prevent the Misuse of Information and Protect Data Privacy 

Perimeter Identification 

Through perimeter identification, healthcare systems can prevent the misuse of information and protect data privacy by controlling and knowing the boundaries of trusted access to the organization's information systems both physically and logically (Cankaya & Kywe, 2015). Establishment of parameters should be based on the locations of the assets that are to be protected. Healthcare organizations could implement RFID systems that should track and monitor each employee’s movements as well as what they access while both inside and outside the healthcare system (Cankaya & Kywe, 2015). This will allow for logs to be created for every employee of the institution and hence they can be analyzed on a regular basis so as to provide efficient and effective data privacy of patient information as well as prevent any unauthorized use or transfer of patient information.

Access Control Principles 

The CIO and CTO of health care systems should encourage the implementation of the least privilege principle for all employees in a healthcare organization which will make it easier to protect patient information (Cankaya & Kywe, 2015). The principle of the least privilege states that if nothing has been configured specifically for an individual or groups that they belong to, the user/individual should not be able to that resource. Another control measure is the separation of duties. This is based on the separation of any conflicting areas of responsibility with the goal of reducing the chances unintentional or unauthorized access, modification or misuse of organizational information or assets (Cankaya & Kywe, 2015). When such solutions are implemented, they make sure that fewer or no employees are capable of conducting malicious actions and it also means that there are fewer accounts that could be vulnerable to hacking as they contain limited privileges (Cankaya & Kywe, 2015). The separation of duties and the principle of the least privilege is a security standard and measure that declares that any new account should always be created with the least privileges and levels can be increased when necessary. These two methods should also be applicable to any third parties such as vendors and suppliers that have access to information about the healthcare organization, and their access credentials should be terminated once their contract is complete (Cankaya & Kywe, 2015).

Strategies for Health Care Organizations to Train Providers 

Role-Based Training - This mode of training is efficient when it is organized to the functions, and the providers are most attentive when the training is directly associated with the work that they do (Hoyt, 2014). For instance, when the training is directly related to electronic medical records functions that the end-users perform on a daily basis, the providers will be familiar with these duties and hence provide the required functionalities in the EMRs system that they will be developing (Hoyt, 2014).

Process-Based Training – Process-based training is efficient for providers when learning how to develop new systems (Hoyt, 2014). This is because when providers will be learning how to develop the new system, various issues will rise on how workflows in the processes are conducted. For instance, the training on e-prescription is an important new technology-based medication refill process (Hoyt, 2014). The manual e-prescription process only involved the providers, but the electronic method now involves nurses, call center staff, and medical assistants as well. There is a need for the providers to understand the roles of all the staff and stakeholders that will be involved in the process and the events that occur at each stage (Hoyt, 2014).

Best Practices for Effective IT Alignment and Strategic Planning Initiatives 

Identify Business Drivers 

This is the first step in IT alignment and strategic planning initiatives because, in this step, the healthcare organizational needs are the ones that are driving IT (Shi, 2014). In this step, the needs of the healthcare facility that require IT enablement are identified. Doe the organization need an EMR systems or a CPOE system? Healthcare organizational needs are constantly changing, and occasionally they should be identified so that the immediate action is taken in response to these needs (Shi, 2014). This process also involves interview sessions with management and business representatives so as to establish an understanding of the principles that relate to the organization's strategy and also to the technical approaches. The main role of the interview questions is to ask each organization unit to identify both their current and future requirements for business growth, taking into account the availability and capacity of the requirements (Shi, 2014). The data that will be extracted from these interviews will provide a business-driven strategy.

Create Information Technology Vision 

Now that the organization’s needs have been identified, the next step involves how IT can help in meeting those needs. This step identifies the capability of IT in infrastructure, strategy, organization, and processes that are required in order to meet the organization’s priorities (Shi, 2014). A vision of IT is responsible for laying down the required policy or guidelines that will drive the creation of the capability of IT. The IT vision should be aligned with meeting the stipulated business needs.

Adjustments of IT Strategy 

Adjustments in IT strategy are important because they ensure that there is a connection between the changing business needs while implementing IT solutions to respond to those needs. It is therefore vital to keep track of the changing business needs both internally and externally so as to make sure that the IT solutions are in line with them (Shi, 2014). In case they are not, the senior management is the tasked with the responsibility of ensuring that those initiatives are halted.

References

Cankaya, E., & Kywe, T. (2015). A Secure Healthcare System: From Design to Implementation. Procedia Computer Science , 62, 203-212.

Hoyt, R. (2014). Health Informatics: Practical Guide for Healthcare and Information Technology Professionals . Morrisville, North Carolina: Lulu.com.

Lorenzi, N., Riley, R., & Dewan, N. (2002). Leadership Roles and Responsibilities of the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Information Officer. Behavioral Healthcare Informatics , 149-155.

Oliveira, S., Arroyo, C., Oliveira, M., & Ferreira, A. (2011). Use and Development of Health Information Systems: The Experience of an Organizational Unit Responsible for the Technological Services at Public Hospitals. JISTEM Journal Of Information Systems And Technology Management, 8(1), 155-178.

Shi, L. (2014). Delivering Health Care in America: A Systems Approach . Burlington, Massachusetts: Jones & Bartlett Learning.