Running Head: Technology, Communication, and the Health Care Industry

Running head: Technology, Communication, and the Health Care Industry

Technology, Communication, and the Health Care Industry: Progressive steps to achieve professional quality of managed care in an overwhelmed system.

Christopher H. Hamlett

Jacqueline Pettaway

Binder Muhar

Eva Naugle

Table of Contents

Introduction: 3

Executive Summary: 4

Problem or Issue Statement: 6

COMMUNICATION STRUCTURE IMPACT ON ORGANIZATION: 6

Electronic health record (EHR) 6

Organization Governance 6

Billing Optimization 7

Strategy 7

Technology 8

Literature Review: 9

STEPS IN ORGANIZATIONAL PLANNING AND FUNCTIONS OF MANAGEMENT 9

Identifying and defining problems 9

Managing the Change: from paper to EHR 10

PROBLEM ANALYSIS: 10

Communication............................................................................................11

Organizing..................................................................................................11

Leading.....................................................................................................12

SOLUTIONS AND IMPLEMENTATION 12

Strategic....................................................................................................13

Monitoring.................................................................................................13

Analyzing...................................................................................................14

Realignment................................................................................................14

Training.....................................................................................................14

Summary and Conclusion...................................................................................16

Technology, Communication, and the Health Care Industry: Progressive steps to achieve professional quality of managed care in an overwhelmed system.

Introduction

Electronic Health Records and Electronic Medical Records are all over the news with recent focus on Health Care Information Technology. Over the next few years, the world of medical IT will consist of great changes. Health Care is getting a major information technology overhaul as the world moves towards a digital age. To stay up to date, make sure to acquire the latest health care news, insight, analysis, blogs and product reviews from eWeek Health Care IT and Medical IT news articles. Follow the latest growth areas such as automated practice management, electronic health records (EHR), electronic medical records (EMR), computerized physician entry (CPE) and peer intelligence. As Information Technology increasingly penetrates the healthcare industry, physicians and patients are experiencing the benefits of on-demand access to medical information where, when and how it is needed. Facilitating the flow of information within a healthcare organization is becoming a quality differentiator among healthcare providers.

Healthcare has traditionally seen lower levels of investment in IT than other service industries . This has resulted in a number of problems for healthcare providers, with systems in desperate need of modernization to overcome the challenges that have arisen over the years - disparate mix of software systems that struggle to share information, infrastructure that hinders rather than helps expansion or growth, and programs that are not optimally aligned with clinical workflows.

As expectations for improved healthcare continue to evolve, older IT systems will increasingly struggle to deliver a truly integrated flow of information having been designed traditionally around provider needs, rather than around a patient's needs and as such, both patients and medical staff increasingly experience healthcare technology that is below expectation.

Recent advances in IT are enabling providers to improve the quality of patient care. Today's healthcare IT is much more than traditional isolated computers and unfriendly applications. Increasingly, patient care is exploiting the new tools and information that systems can provide, while maintaining a patient-centric approach to their use.

Software that supports the core medical processes, hardware that allows easy access to information at the point of care, and standards that make the integration of different systems easier than ever before are all key features of the new healthcare IT systems.

Executive Summary

The impeding new health care law creeping into the medical industry with extensive data requirements, encumbered with the increasing economic stress on the healthcare system has created the issue of highly increased numbers of errors. These errors have increased due to the overloading and overwhelming shortage of health care providers joined with the recently unemployed and baby boomers that are uninsured and/or underinsured clients seeking care. This can be described as the perfect storm if not approached from a realistic well organized system of standards when it comes to managed care.

There are three main areas of focus that are used in business to create a framework in order to form the foundation a company needs to establish itself as a strong and completive profitable entity. The three areas are organizational governance, EHR, and information technology. These areas are outlined in