New IT infrastructure and software in healthcare
By shrinking healthcare budgets, focusing on emotion-oriented care and customer-oriented working in healthcare is a lot of pressure on institutions. The productivity of health care must be increased, but this is possible only if the healthcare organization is well organized internally by operates its IT infrastructure and software.
The office automation and software used in healthcare facilities must operate flawlessly, because otherwise there is an even greater concern backlog and the customer can not be adequately controlled.
The key question of this article is: What is the cause of IT problems within healthcare and how to organize a flawless IT infrastructure in healthcare? And how will the transition to new or improved office automation place?
Why office automation fails at health care facilities may
Within healthcare is often a multitude of office automation systems available that often work independently. This often leads to problems, which are explained below with reference to examples.
No reliable health IT infrastructure through IPVPN
As a first example we take an institution with a central headquarters and 300 workstations, 30 regional offices with 10-15 workstations and approximately 500 locations with 1-5 workstations per site care, all spread across the country.
For the client registration use is made of a central home health care software system in which all carers capture data about their clients. However, such a comprehensive health IT infrastructure is difficult to manage. An update of the care client registration system means that all sites must be visited to install the update on the workstations.
In addition, often all locations through IPVPN network connected to the main location. Due to cost reasons, the compounds are often not very fast. This brings with it a number of problems.
The employee is experiencing slowness in the use of ICT resources;
Errors occur in the synchronization of the client registration;
Print jobs and email messages slow down the connection even more;
Workplace Remote Administration is hardly to carry;
Support for remote users is very slow;
Rollout of new applications or updates is time consuming and costly;
Many ask for the help desk caused by the slow connections.
The above problems with connections between sites provide a lot of inconvenience and frustration for your staff.
No chain collaboration between health care possible
Many healthcare facilities use a closed system in which connections to external parties mired and care chain is not possible.
Incidentally, it is often possible to create a link / interface with any home health care software system in the chain if at board level between the parties in the chain are made proper arrangements. Trouble is often the wrangling over how data and information to be exchanged standardized. With pressure from the board is often to reach a solution.
But not only the systems are the cause of the lack of chain. Another problem is that the care information (relevant data on patients, etc.) by telephone or through the mail is transmitted. This care information is then processed in the helpdesk system. The treatment is often delayed, so the help desk does not have the right information. The lack of up-to-date information it is not possible anyway to exchange data.
Lack scalability healthcare
Healthcare institutions strive for economies of scale. Small healthcare institutions can hardly afford the treatments of multiple handicapped clients. Here, the client is the victim of. By expanding a health care institution can also these patients should have an adequate care. Expansion in the care takes the most place through acquisitions and mergers. In addition, also find place in the expanding diversity of care.
A merger with a large home care institution in ICT brings another with it new problems.
The central area is often not accessible from the outside;
There is usually insufficient data storage available;
Expansion requires purchase and implementation of new systems.
Result: it takes several months before the infrastructure is appropriate to grant a care access. In particular, insufficient flexibility in the IT infrastructure to quickly respond to such a situation and to provide the appropriate services.
No possibility of teleworking in care through workplace automation
A large number of health care workers in nursing services work part-time and / or different care locations. They would like from home can use the client registration as a form of workplace automation. After this, the healthcare worker can be deployed more flexibly because part of the work can be done from home at times convenient to the employee.
The intranet of the health care authorities offers plenty of information that nurses and managers can use for their work. It is logical that in their professional care staff and managers can access this information even outside working hours to read as certain treatments, protocols or policy data quietly after. Or through workplace automation to prepare themselves for the clients should be treated.
Interaction from a home workplace is still a problem for many healthcare facilities and Medical Marijuana Dispensary Locations facilities. In particular, the organization and control of? workplace automation plus a secure connection is often an activity where system administrators and IT department of a health care institution not to transmit through the daily bustle.
Unproductiveness by double data entry at care facility
Entering the same information in many different systems is a common problem within health care institutions.
A good example is the central personnel administration, which all personnel data is entered. But in addition, the personnel data are also stored in the address book of the institution in the ICT system in the helpdesk system to internal billing system, the intranet system etc.
In short, many of the same home health care software company data is recorded in several places. This leads to a large contamination of the various systems. Below is an example of how the double data entry was resolved.
One of the policy objectives of a service institution for the mentally disabled had to deal with many double entry of data.
In analyzing the problem using a data plan they went back to the objective that had been formulated for the caregivers’ caregivers have to deal with their actual work, services for the mentally handicapped, and as little as possible with all kinds of red tape. ‘
That for this in a simple way on must have the necessary data to be entered once was a derivative thereof. After this analysis, the most significant bottleneck in the implementation of the work.
From the information plan also showed that the IT department by understaffing had their hands full with the solution of other problems. Therefore made use of a third party who had a lot of experience in the mental health care with solving the problem of duplicate data entry. The problems i.s.m. the existing department for charting as a solution built an interface between different systems. This allows caregivers encounter and the internal IT department no more problems with duplicate data entry.
Structuring your (health) goals into a plan information provides insight into the cause of your IT problems
To find out what the main cause of your IT problems and how this can be solved, it is important to bring the symptoms and problems identified.
This often takes place on the basis of an inventory of problems that is the basis for a plan information. This information plan are all objectives set at management level and a complete plan describes how an objective can be achieved in practice.
Essential information within a plan, the process steps to follow:
Formulate a clear objective for your organization, such as the search for optimum accessibility of your organization to your employees, suppliers, supply chain partners and customers. It is creating a vision for example automating workplaces, such as the ability to work from home is important.;
Identifying and integrating all (management) needs your care organization in the overall supply and process of products and services;
After this, the most important ICT design requirements can be adopted to achieve the required ICT support in your care processes;
Then create a business plan and description of all relevant products and services, business processes, information flows and business data;
On the basis of all these data, a system model can be developed which represents the link between the existing and new (information) system;
Then you can start with the technical implementation through automation and technical specialists.
Want to know more about the background of an information plan and the steps that need to be described and continue on a platter to be empowered, read the article: ICT information for healthcare plan in 6 steps.
Example of a policy that was described in an information plan
As the process steps shows have triggered an information plan does not always have to be an IT problem but a policy can also cause to change the existing ICT infrastructure.
To give you an idea of how such a policy is formulated, below an objective that has formulated a Disability Organization on the basis of an information plan.
A care facility for people with mental disabilities had a technically obsolete network based on Novell and Citrix, which was regularly out of the air through which the business was disrupted.
The management requires a reliable system that provides optimum support for business processes and employees within its organization, available infrastructure and a simply furnished management organization with good support from internal IT department of mental health care organization.
Was essential in the overall reliability (availability) of the system (especially ERP package) and the ability to make the system even outside the office (home or other locations) to make available.
Given the changes experienced by the organization, merger, sale and moving people wanted a fast and efficient migration of the overall system, where employees experience minimal disruption. Also, they also wanted a flexible and scalable system to realize future changes / developments.
Implementation of ICT migration, or how to organize the trajectory of a communications plan for a new ICT infrastructure?
At the time the policy objectives set out in an information plan and the required IT process structure is defined in the entire framework is ready, but the changes still have to be organized and implemented.
Care institutions want to implement IT projects, such as office automation, often take too much on the fork and underestimate? the benefits of outsourcing IT migration:
ICT investments in phases spread with vision and policy needs expert help;
Determining appropriate IT functionality is not easy and requires technical expertise;
Too often looked with an ICT-driven look at possible changes rather than process-oriented;
Balance between production and required ICT can not be a global estimate;
Training sessions give users a separate subject;
Etc.
The (partially) outsource ICT migration to an expert automation that transmits your own IT department engages in the implementation and knowledge is often worth considering.
Below is an example of a healthcare facility partially enlisted the help of an external IT provider.
A healthcare facility needed to automate ambitious, but had no experience in large-scale IT implementation enlisted the help of its IT provider.
This suggested to carry out the implementation in stages, so that the organization did not experience any problems with the changes. The plan was divided into several phases with each phase as a separate project objectives were defined and implemented.
This made it possible to carry out interim control and to adjust, if necessary, so that the progress, defined schedule and budgets was carefully ensured (the largest bottleneck of ICT).
To give you an idea of the various projects are those described below:
Implementation local network
System Management
Training employees (Windows and Office)
GroupWare
Clutch Locations
Implementing Citrix Metaframe
Teleworking
Instruction teleworkers
Helpdesk