Answer

Electronic Health Records (EHRs)

Healthcare organizations are faced with various challenges in the process of delivering care to patients. Such challenges affect operations which might possibly hinder delivery of quality care. Changes are important and inevitable in any organization and must, therefore, be executed for productivity reasons. This paper seeks to identify a lack of technologically automated system as an issue within the medical records department in my organization, describe a realistic change that could be made to address the issue, summarize how the change would align with the organization’s mission, vision, and values as well as relevant professional standards, identify a change model or strategy to guide the planning and implementation of the change, outline the steps followed to facilitate the change and explain who would be involved in initiating and managing this change, as well as the skills and characteristics that would be necessary to facilitate the change effort.

In the organization that I work, the medical records department faces several inefficiencies related to automation of patient records. Provision of an up-to-date, accurate and complete data about patients during care delivery has been an issue. Such problems limit the ability to access patient records for a more coordinated and efficient care. Insecurely sharing patient information and the rest of clinicians restricts healthcare providers from effectively diagnosing patients following an increase in medical errors due to overwhelming paperwork. The lack of an automated records system within the medical records department compromises the privacy of patient information and health records a causing a major drawback in terms of ease of access, retrieval and storage. In addition, it does not promote complete and eligible documentation of patient data as well as streamlined coding and billing. All these uncertainties affect the quality of care delivered in the hospital which also compromises the efficiency in meeting organizational business goals. The costs are elevated due to increased paper work, duplication of testing and reduced patient safety.

Investing in electronic health records is the most realistic change that could be made to address the issue. Electronic Health Records (EHR) refer to the patient-centered real-time records that enhance secure accessibility to patient information by authorized users (Nguyen, Bellucci, & Nguyen, 2014). The EHR would cover the patient’s treatment plans, medical history, lab tests, diagnoses and medications (Hoerbst & Ammenwerth, 2010). The system would also improve patient care, boosts patient participation and care coordination by physicians as well as patient outcomes through improved practice efficiencies. Reforms in healthcare systems are fast spreading across the globe.

Investing in technological skills helps in identifying meaningful and actionable patient data. It is a major ICT trend that needs to be incorporated by healthcare organizations. The EHR would successfully improve the quality of services provided by enhancing cost efficiency in healthcare units out of inaccuracies and reduced errors. EHR is the most recognized investment pattern that will shape the future of Health Information Technology (HIT) within the institution. Striving to establish a universal and integrated EHR would help in approving the generated health insurance plans for patients and health providers while reducing the number of challenges encountered in healthcare (Gartee, 2016). Healthcare providers will be in a position to deliver high quality care while incurring low costs to patients for the benefit of the payers. It can also regulate the rate of charge and allow more enrollment chances for people from different parts of the world. The predictive EHRs and data analytics improve patient outcomes because it facilitates diagnosis of various diseases and infections.

The change would align with the organization’s mission, vision, and values as well as relevant professional standards by facilitating delivery of effective and quality care to patients. Since the mission of the organization is to promote patient safety, EHR would help the hospital achieve its mission since when in put in place, EHR system ensures accuracy of diagnosis while reducing medical errors that could have possibly occurred during practice. Since the vision of the institution to achieve efficacy in patient satisfaction and quality service delivery, implementation of EHRs will boost efficiency in service delivery, enhance privacy of patient data, and improve recovery of patient data, easy accessibility to vital information as well as reduction in service costs towards realizing the goal (Gartee, 2016). The organizational value lies in promotion of integrity and privacy for patients’ data. Therefore, implementation of electronic records will help the hospital achieve the standards by improving all patient care aspects; safety, patient centeredness, timelessness, effectiveness, education as well as proper communication. It will improve performance by instilling physicians with values like integrity, efficacy, honesty, devotion to the interests of patients as well as confidentiality when working with patient data for improved health outcomes (Gartee, 2016). The professional standard is to improve care quality and reduce medical errors. HER system will be of significance by turning them into greater functional opportunities through implementation of remote support systems, cloud computing for patient data analysis that improve quality of care delivered to patients.

The Kurt Lewin’s change theory will be employed in guiding the planning and implementation of the change. The change theory is one of the cornerstone models for understanding organizational change and helps in better understanding of procedures. Just like the change model, the process will entail three steps to facilitate the change strategy. The unfreezing stage for psychologically preparing the organizational staff on why taking up the change is essential. The current status quo will be revised so that the newly proposed change can be build up (McAlearney et al., 2014). This phase will highlight why it is important to drop the existing ways of operation and take up the new technological innovation for efficiency reasons (Marquis & Huston, 2017).

The next phase is the change stage where the organizational the change highlighted in the freeze stage and strategize better ways of handling operations. The management acts in ways that support the newly proposed EHRs system change. All staff must proactively participate in the change (McAlearney et al., 2014). The necessary equipment is introduced and implemented during this stage so that operations can be switched from the old ways to the new system. Finally, the refreezing stage allows employees within in the hospital to take up and internalize the changes to ensure the technological system is continually used and incorporated into the daily operations of the unit. Following the new sense of stability, all persons will feel a sense of stability, confidence and comfortable with the new ways of working.

A number of people will be involved in initiating and managing the change process. The top management must be included to oversee the whole procedure and accredit it. The records department personnel should be included to handle technical computer operations. Moreover, the healthcare physicians and providers should be part of the change process because they will be the primary users of the system, especially when retrieving and filling in patient data. The finance office must also be part of the process for purposes of funding its budget estimate. Facilitating the change will require a number of skills and characteristics. The staff must be trained on computer operations and how to handle the system in place to avoid confusion. They must be equipped with adequate computer skills and strategies on using the system that facilitates the change. Change management will require a lot of patience and persistence, especially when trying to adjust from the old system. The group must show a lot of integrity, respect and honesty when handling patient information. The group must be intelligent so that the operations are well understood and operations taken up much more effectively.

In conclusion, healthcare organizations are faced with different problems or uncertainties in the process of delivering care to patients, which affect the ways of operation which could possibly hinder delivery of quality care. The healthcare organization needs to adopt to the technological system of operation for purposes of saving time while enhancing operation efficiency in the event of care delivery.