SocialOrganization Issues in healthcare information

Answer

Tasks-People-Technology

Introduction

Assessment of the overall impact and acceptance of technology in healthcare has been an ongoing affair for a long time. When the user acceptance of technology is attempted, it must be considered that not only are these user factors important, but it also has to be seen how these various factors fit together. Generally, the impacts of performance depend on the fit between technological characteristics, task requirements and individual’s abilities (Abbas & Singh, 2019). McKinly is intending to provide better quality services and improve the care given to clients through the Picture Archive and Communication System (PACS), an effort spearheaded by the medical imaging department in an effort to not only improve quality but also reduce the costs. This case is an analysis of a healthcare organization in which a poor fit in terms of the user skills, attitudes, integration and technology were discovered. The case analyses and discusses how these problems that are evident at the nexus between users and technology can affect the overall healthcare provision and prevent the attainment of health outcomes not only at McKinly but also in other healthcare jurisdictions.

Results/Analysis

The adoption of PACS as a system within the imaging department was informed both by an increasing number of patients and the desire to reduce the healthcare costs. The adoption of this system had the potential of improving efficiency, as well as to fully see how far these changes could go. An assessment of the technology fit to the demands of the users is necessary.  The results of the intervention can be explained through the eight dimensions developed by Sittig and Singh.

Hardware and Software Computing Infrastructure

 This is a purely technical dimension that deals with the physical devices such as computers, printers, monitors and other devices that can be used to access and retrieve clinical applications and medical devices. It includes the operation system and power that these computers use. The PACS implementation involved the use of digital scanners, digital systems, film equipment, computers and even chemicals that were all to be used to produce digital images. It is important to determine whether or not these hardware and software fit the skill set and attitudes at the radiology and imaging department.

Clinical Content

The dimension covers textual and numeric data from imaging devices or scanned from paper-based sources. It may include aspects of the patient’s condition like laboratory test results and radiographic images. This content has to be regarded in terms of the skills possessed by the members of various teams, and how the content allows for a demonstration of these skills. The PACS to be used had to have the capacity to receive image data and store them for future retrieval. Additionally, they allow for simultaneous viewing of the images. The images are also stored and can be reviewed by the radiologist later.

Human Computer Interface

This aspect has to do with the human computer interaction. This dimension is vital in a user, the tasks to be performed and their relationship to technology. It involves the hiding of complexities that may result from the use of computers and the comfort of the healthcare personnel while working on the work on the computers. The PACS remove some of the technicalities that traditional imaging methods presented (Abdekhoda et al. 2019). First, they permit simultaneous immediate access to images, so that clinicians can review the images concurrently while at the hospital or in the field. As opposed to films, they do not need a lot of space for storage, and their retrieval is less time-consuming.

People

This dimension involves all the people taking part in the crafting and implementation of HIT. It looks at the user and how the system developed would suit them. It requires that these users are educated about the system design and use. Educating users on the PACs would be a multi-disciplinary effort that ultimately makes them fit to implement the technology. The implementation of the most effective PACS was arrived at after consultations and deliberations from the Steering Committee, the Leadership group, the User Group and the Technical Advisory Group. The users are trained on the best ways of digitizing analog film and video, data communication, data storage and image distribution.

Workflow and Communication

The dimension deals with making sure that the patient gets the care they need when they need it, and that there is good communication and collaboration for positive health outcomes (Sittig and Singh, 2010).  This enables the prevailing attitudes to be changed for a better fit with the technology. The PACS transition time demands that workflow changes are clearly defined and understood. At McKinly, this is considered important because getting an attitude change, coupled with advancement in skill, ensures that the users are fit for the technology in use. In addition, it may also cause complications when the radiologists do not understand the changes that come with the PACS use. Immediately after PACS implementation, productivity actually declines as the radiologists begin the learning process.

Internal Organizational Policies, Procedures and Culture

This dimension reiterates the fact that PACS interventions work to preserve and improve organizational culture and that the procedures adopted are consistent with the policies that the organization values. In this case, however, the PACS implementation presents McKinly with the possibility of upsetting the normal bureaucracy (Sittig & Singh, 2010). This upset discourages other users accustomed to the traditional and conservative methods of operation, and thus has the potential to undermine the technological fit narrative.

External Rules, Regulations and Pressures

These are a host of federal, state and council regulations that control the use of technology systems in healthcare settings. At McKinly, the ultimate goal is to make the imaging department of radiology filmless. However, there is always need for hardcopy films for legal, educational and other unforeseen reasons. Some people may however interpret this complimentary mechanism to mean disapproval to the use of technology (Alotaibi & Federico, 2017). This makes them feel no desire to be fit in terms of technology application in healthcare.

System Measurement and Monitoring

The impacts of technology in Health Care have to measured and monitored regularly (Sittig & Singh, 2010). It involves assessing to what extent they are used by clinicians to achieve desired outcomes, the effectiveness of the system in terms of the patient health improvement, and the unintended consequences of the system. Assessing how much the PACS contribute to the goal of attaining the technological fitness is essential to the delivery of positive health outcomes.

Discussion

One of the problems that the PACS system would run into is the potential insufficiency in skills needed to operate the technological system. A “fit” includes ensuring that the users can manipulate the systems provided within the healthcare environment and use them to make the necessary decisions and interventions (Liu & Wang, 2011). They then have to be trained sufficiently and guided on the use of a particular technology.

Central to the use of technology in the healthcare system is user acceptance and attitudes (Pare & Trudel, 2017). The problem of limited acceptance of the PACS system is a challenge that has to be addressed if technology fit is to be attained. Acceptance begins with sensitization of the potential users, making them understand how much benefit the PACS system would bring. This problem would affect the internal organizational policies dimension whereby there has to be communication and collaboration before it can be fully embraced. The challenge of attitudes is closely related to acceptance. Attitudes are brought about by the prevailing conditions or perceived misconceptions. As a challenge, attitudes can only be overcome by consistent and systematic efforts geared towards actual demonstration of how the system works and illustrating the benefits to the user.

The aforementioned problems and challenges can pose a challenge to the implementation of the PACS system, especially to the IT management teams and the targeted users of the system itself. From the ongoing discussion, these problems can be caused by the users’ negative attitudes, lack of skills or failure to accept the suggested change through the introduction of the PACS.

Conclusion

As discussed and analysed above, the introduction of PACS system at McKinley can be looked at as a technological innovation that can be affected by and cause various problems. The technological fit, in terms of the poor attitudes, failure to accept the program and insufficient skill, are some of the challenges that can potentially be associated with PACS. The human computer interface dimension is the dimension with the greatest evidence in the case, while the people dimension is the one I felt had the greatest likelihood of being problematic. This was settled on following the manner in which the use of technology in healthcare could be affected by such things as attitude and acceptance. It is the people who fail to accept and develop attitudes to these forms of technology, making it harder to implement the needed interventions.