Project Part 1: Project Gap, Goals, and Stakeholders - Research Paper Example

Project Part Project Gap, Goals, and Stakeholders Project Part Project Gap, Goals, and Stakeholders Cleveland Clinic has a comprehensive health information management system that effectively handles information related to admission, census, hospital supplies, human resources, patient access to information, and most recently, the announced population management (Perna, 2013). However, gaps do exist in the systems in terms of service delivery. These gaps include the system being developed in a “quick-and-dirty” the system administrator will never know when everything collapses.

Its documentation is not satisfactory and there is plenty of overlapping information and unclear logical structure of the database. Another issue is mainly logic i.e. how the data managed ad manipulated. A lot of information is handled by the information system i.e. from admission details of patients, the clinic inventory records and human resources. Therefore, there is no clear definition and environment on how this data should be managed and the concepts are still changing. (Connolly, 2005) The way in which data is transferred and transformed from one format for everybody to access it also provides a major gap in Cleveland Clinic’s information system.

This transfer and transformation of data form one format to another may lower the accuracy of the data captured by the system. The same data is stored in in different scale in different places hence leading to traditional update gaps. The names of these data is inconsistent since the same data has different names in different locations. Also since the same management system is used across the different hospital departments, it means that data is transferred from different sources regularly, but at different points of time.

This makes the management and the utilization of the data a bit uncomfortable when other data source is claiming something else than some other data source. (Perna, 2013) A centralized patient and staff database for Cleveland Clinic functions in a superb way but it does not give a full picture of all the patients and staff hence need for a customer relationship management (CRM). This centralized database brings out issues on data integrity occasionally when a patient’s or staff’s duplicate is accidentally created.

Another gap noted in the information system is reporting feature and integration. The viewer of reports is old and not compatible with newer operating systems. It is also very difficult to compare different years and integration with data sources is risky and errors have been detected. (Connolly, 2005) Therefore, with the gaps identified in the information system, the deliverables in this project will be to ensure the information management system to be implemented provides a long lasting solution to Cleveland Clinic in its effort to reduce cost associated with administration and clinical processes and also ensure superb delivery of service to both their staff and consumers.

The system should also provide an easy way in which the administration would utilize in the overall management and operations of the clinic hence leading to a better and rapid response to patient care demands since the whole process of collecting, storage and retrial of patient information would have been automated. The system should also improve the ways in which all the diagnoses and treatments are done since it provides both the doctors and other staff with a comprehensive support system that help in them in making right decisions regarding their patients.

(Smith, 2000). Other deliverables for this project will include ensuring that it provides an easy to understand flow of information regarding patients in the automated system. This will provide an efficient way in which the doctors and hospital staff can use to provide service to patients. In addition to that, it should provide other essential benefits e.g. a faster flow of information between the shareholders, an easier way of managing records, an automated processes hence limited paperwork, improved flexibility, reliability, reduced wastage, registration and waiting time by patients and timely provision of information.

It should also ensure that the image of Cleveland Clinic is improved and provide and increase competitive advantage hence provide an opportunity of improving the care for patients and increasing profits. (Wager, 2009) The clinical management system for Cleveland Clinic will constitute both core, supporting and enterprise-enabling modules. The idea is to have information accessed and shared by different departments. Therefore the stakeholders in this case who will own data include the personnel management department, the inventory, operational theatre, diagnostics and laboratory and the medical records.

References Connolly, T. M., & Begg, C. E. (2005). Database systems: a practical approach to design, implementation, and management (4th ed.). Harlow, Essex, England: Addison-Wesley. Perna, G. (2013). Cleveland Clinic Announces Alliance with Community Health Systems. Healthcare Informatics. Retrieved November 14, 2013, from http://www.healthcare-informatics.com/news-item/cleveland-clinic-announces-alliance-community-health-systems Smith, J. (2000). Health management information systems: a handbook for decision makers.

Buckingham: Open University Press. Wager, K. A., Lee, F. W., & Glaser, J. (2009). Health care information systems: a practical approach for health care management (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.