IT and IS in Organizations, Goals and Objectives - Assignment Example

IT and IS in organizations Table of contents Page Executive summary 3 Business Report 1. Organizational Purpose, Function and Structure 4 1.1 Goals and objectives 4 1.2 IT support of Business Functions 4 1.3 Organizational Structure 6 1.4 Approach to internal management and control 8 2. Business Processes and Information Systems 10 2.1 Central Operation Processing System 10 2.2 Evaluation 14 3. Expanding the Information Technology Systems 16 3.1 Executive information system in National Medical 16 3.2 Decision support system in National Medical 17 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The growth of the fifty year old National Medical, an authority under the Ministry of Health, Australia, has been incredible following the adoption of information technology support. With the dual goals of making payments for the provision of health services and the dissemination of health information, it has supported the maintenance of health of 45 million Australians. Five services are covered under the organization: health, hearing, optical, dental and pharmaceutical. The IT support has enabled the organization to provide a highly efficient and excellent quality of service to the public. An almost fool-proof system of payments by way of compensations is in place. Drugs being prescribed are tracked to clarify that they have been done so by authorized personnel. The functional, flat, hierarchial structure of the organization allows different functional units to work on their own maximizing the final performance. Greater participation and sharing of expertise among the 15000 employees has resulted in a high peak of efficiency. The immensely competent CEO and the Federal Minister of Health provide the leadership. The various resources and the information service activities have ensured the efficiency and effectiveness of the organization. Metrics are being implemented for upgrading efficiency and effectiveness in the performance level. The organization is planning changes with IT support. Steps are being taken to engage a Development Manager, initiate a Quality Assurance Department and incorporate training programmes for boosting the efficiency of the staff and keeping them well informed and up-to-date about the software changes from time to time. The IT systems are being expanded with an Executive Information System and a Decision Support System to facilitate the efficiency of the decision-makers at the top. National Medical is bent on seeing to the health of all Australians. NATIONAL MEDICAL - BUSINESS REPORT 1. Organizational Purpose, Function and Structure 1.1. Goals and objectives Government payments for the provision of health services for the public and the provision of services regarding health information are the two objectives of the National Medical. The services cover the goals of the Organization which aim at the sustenance and improvement of health of the beneficiaries and help them avail of the best medical care even under financial constraints. 1.2. IT support of Business Functions The hearing service provides subsidies to providers for audiological assessment and products to the community, thus ensuring that all people are able to access hearing services in a timely and affordable manner. The hearing disabled need not wait for ample resources for availing a full audiological assessment which may be of utmost importance for deciding on a hearing aid which could alter the general well-being and demeanor of a patient. The National Medical Service would help him overcome his disability by affording him a complete audiological assessment and helping him acquire a hearing aid or undergo a surgery if necessary. The IT system works through the Central Operation Processing System which enables the patient to put in a claim for compensation of his expenditure. Three online input systems would disseminate information about the patient who enters his demographic data himself or with the help of employees of the providers. Details of the services provided would be complete and accurate. The products and services used by National Medical for its business would be managed by the Logistics Procurement system. Printer paper for the instruments used for audiological assessment, order forms and other stationery required would be procured. Patients can have optical problems by way of a refractory error or blindness resulting from congenital illness like cataract, or if older and vulnerable, may be suffering from cataract or other aging illnesses which affect their vision. Appropriate assessment could reveal the right diagnosis. The provider would also be delineating the method of correction which could be provision of spectacles or surgery or further advanced and sophisticated investigations. Generally high quality optical services are provided. The information would be online in the Central Operation Processing System and available for the National Medical Services which make the payment arrangements to reach the providers. Patients are thus duly compensated for spectacles, surgery or further investigations. Disseminating information on visual problems and illnesses like cataract and glaucoma in the elderly would also be a main objective. The drugs being given to patients are tracked and maintained in the Pharmaceutical Benefits System. This system also maintains details of patients and the affordability of the drugs prescribed. Records of patients, providers, pharmacies and drugs are tracked through this system. The addresses and the approval numbers of the pharmacies would help the verification of the prescriptions. The details of the pharmacists and the medical practitioners would provide information about the prescribing authority. Residents are to be provided affordable drugs and must avail of them in a timely manner. A lag in provision of medicine or unnecessary prescription of costly medicine would be viewed seriously. Distribution of medicines at subsidized rates is therefore maintained. 1.3 Organizational structure Federal Minister of Health Executive Management Team CEO Gen Managers State managers 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1. Planning Dept. 1-8 All Finance teams 2. Operations Dept. 3. IT and E Business 4. Financial Dept. a) Budgeting and management b) Financial Control c) National Corporate services. 5. HR Dept. 6. Oversight Dept. The structure is functional with a flat hierarchy. The Federal Minister for Health is in control with the CEO heading the executive management team of two groups of managers who help him in the various tasks of the organization: general managers for the different functions and state managers who form finance teams for looking after the daily financial accounting. One advantage of the functional structure in the National Medicals is that greater participation is possible with greater efficiency and communication thereby maximizing the performance of the functional teams. Decisions taken are best for implementation. Significant problems would be handled by the technically competent and experienced CEO and the Minister above him. The younger staff would be coached by the CEO and the managers. The various sub- organizations pave the way for intensive sharing of priceless expertise within them. The responsibility of mobilizing the teams rests upon the shoulders of the CEO and managers. The second advantage is in the concept of top-level specialization within the highly-controlled skeleton of the organization enabling a towering peak of efficiency within the organization. Disadvantages abound due to inadequate perspectives and information and the inappropriate consensus due to isolation of units. The functional units are efficient within themselves but they the lack the general information regarding the other units. This leads to a restriction of their views of the objectives of the general organization of the National Medicals. This also leads to the disadvantage of the different units being unable to respond to public demands as a whole and the resultant response is slow to a change in demand. Poor accountability is another drawback. 1.4. Approach to internal management and control The National Medicals has an oversight department which attempts to maintain accountability and confirm the effectiveness of the services provided. Voluntary compliance is actively supported. Simultaneously fraud if any will also be discovered. The system of internal control also unearths deficiencies in the accounting. Efficient internal control reassures the reliability of financial statements in the coming years. The state managers are further concerned with the daily operations and they come directly under the control of the CEO. The quality of internal control should be such that financial misstatements are to be avoided. The Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act deals with the assessment of the internal controls over financial reporting. The methods of reducing total assessment costs in the National Medicals may be executed to confirm the success of the Section 404 program. The experts are the internal auditors. The span of control is wide following the introduction of IT for the general managers and the state managers allowing environment stability to prevail. The wide span of control ensures specialization and operational efficiency. Budget constraints are not thought of as influencing the span of control. The employees are empowered through delegation of work and authority and they have a greater chance of communication with the CEO himself. Size The National Medicals is a large organization of 15000 employees. The central office is in Canberra and there are 400 branches serving the 45 million people in Australia. It has six general managers for the various departments of planning, operations, information technology and E-business, financial services, human resources and the oversight department and eight state managers who look into the daily operations. Each manager has his own team of workers who strive towards achieving the goals of each department. The customer base is wide and better services are provided. More resources are involved and a chance for growth is possible. Job satisfaction may be less in a large organization like the National Medical. If the organization thinks about inter-changing the tasks of the employees and training them for newer ones, employee opportunities improve. The impact of size does not influence the costs of the organization as it is large. Function or purpose The functional structure of the National Medical enables it to provide services through payments and dissemination of information to the large number of resident beneficiaries. The health of the residents is sustained or improved following the guidelines of a health care system at the National Level. The different functioning units of the planning, operations, information technology and E-business, financial services and human resources are controlled from the top management of the CEO and the Federal Minister for Health. The high level of efficiency exhibited has resulted from the increased level of specialization and the well-controlled framework. The technical orientation of the functional management causes the high quality of specialization and influences the decision-making in their unit. Functional performance is therefore maximal and expertise is shared among the members of the different levels of the hierarchy. However the isolation of the units prevents a total response to a demand like a change in the services of the organization. Interface with customers and suppliers The functional structure in the National Medicals does not provide the unit members the chance to have any interface with the customers or suppliers as in a divisional structure. The providers of the services are the ones who see the customers. They provide the information about the patients who need compensations for the various utilities or surgeries or the services provided by the doctors or other health staff or companies which provide the machines or appliances. With the introduction of the Information Technology Services in the form of the Central Operation Processing System, the Logistics Procurement System and the Pharmaceutical Benefits System, the chances of an interface becomes even more reduced with the customers or suppliers being compensated electronically. 2. Business Processes and Information Systems 2.1. Central Operation Processing System i) The Central Operation Processing System (COPS) is an Executive Information System. The top level managers obtain information in a format which is readily accessible and allows interaction. Details of patients receiving medical services and who are eligible for compensations are available. Applications for compensations would be submitted through this system. National Medical uses three input systems in COPS: through the National Medical branches and entered by staff, through the offices of the medical providers by their staff and through a website where the patients themselves can feed in the information. Access is possible using a username and password. ii). The Central Operation Processing System provides all the baseline information regarding the patients who have availed of medical services and have submitted a claim for compensation. The information may be fed in at three different levels online so that all information regarding a patient will be found on the COPS by using a username and password. The staff of the National Medical branches or the staff of the Medical provider would feed in the necessary information regarding the patient. Whoever else requires to add further information regarding some product or service that was provided to the patient can enter the COPS and add the information there. Further the patient himself can provide information or make a submission for claim at the website provided. For the compensation, the patient has to submit his National Medical card number, his bank account details and his medical provider’s details. Claims are put through only when all mandatory details are completed. Even after the payment of compensation has been executed, the information is stored for the future. Another system used is the Logistics Procurement. National Medical ensures efficient management of payment and delivery of all products and services for its own business functions. Stationery items and other products are entered into the system so that the state officer can look at it and approve. Then the item is dispatched if available at the State Supply office depot. Otherwise this item is generated for supply. The third system using IT is the Pharmaceutical Benefits System. Records are kept of all prescriptions to patients so that tracking may be done at any time. Records of medical providers or doctors and pharmacists are also maintained so that one may know whether the prescriptions or services had been provided by approved or authorized personnel. iii). The quality is high as the information dealing with claims can be tracked from three records of information from the patients, medical provider and the pharmacy. The patient provides the details of the medical provider and the pharmacist. Each in turn provides the details of the patient they served. The accuracy of the information is ensured and compensation is paid only if all details are correct. The information can be tracked at any point of time. The products and medicines used by the patient are properly recorded. Whether the prescription is provided by an authorized person is checked in the system. Only the claims of patients who avail of the services of authorized personnel are compensated. The effectiveness of the services rendered by the National Medical is enabled by the high quality data collection and storage. Patients are positive that their claims would be compensated. The high quality and effective usage of IT in the COPS has enhanced the quality of payments made towards compensations. The information services that the National Medical has provided using the IT has influenced the outlook towards the National health care system. Dissemination of the information has been made easier through the website. Sufficient publicity of the techniques for sustenance and improvement of health is possible. Information on the visits to the various general and specialist doctors are seen on the website. The public become aware and more knowledgeable about pre-natal services as much as terminal care services through the COPS iv) A) Information System resources The basic resources of information systems include the people involved, hardware being the computer systems and the media, software which incorporate the programs and procedures for data collection, the data (data and knowledge base) and the networks (communication media and network support) for dissemination and intercommunication. a) People resources- The information fed into the COPS is the information provided by the medical providers, pharmacists and the patients, all the three groups constituting the people involved. The inter-related components are the three input lines. Together the activities contribute to the strategic, managerial and operational functions of the organization. The human resources also include the users of the information systems and the people who are involved with the various information system activities of data collection, processing, storage and dissemination of information. b) Hardware resources. -These include the physical devices used for processing information. Computer systems and the computer peripherals like the mouse, keyboard, video screen, printer and compact discs constitute hardware. c) Software resources- These include the system software, applications software or the programs and the procedures or operating instructions for the users. d) Data resources- Data means more than mere information. It constitutes the matter required for use by managers and information systems specialists. It could be text data or image data which would then be processed for future use. e) Network resources- The operations of organizations and their information systems depend on telecommunication network resources which consist of the communication media and the network support consisting of the resources of the people, hardware, software and data. B) Information system activities include the performance of input, processing, output, storage and control of activities to obtain information products a) Input- The input is the information provided by the medical providers, pharmacists and the patients, all the three groups constituting the people involved. The inter-related components are the three input lines. This activity provides the baseline information which is then sorted out and processed. b) Processing- Data processing is then performed by software experts so that some sort of order prevails. The end users would then be able to use the information as required. c) Output- The data collected could promote analysis and interpretations for the decision makers. d) Storage- The relevant data and the results of analysis may be stored for future use. The information services too would be ready for the eyes of the end-users and professionals. e) Control of activities enables the reaching of the right information to the end-users and ensures a high quality of service to the residents registered under National Medical. 2.2. Evaluation i. Efficiency metrics is the measurement of the effectiveness of providing services at a low cost. a) The speed with which the public click to read a new piece of information indicates the efficiency of the information system. This could be compared to the time of response on a previous occasion when a new piece of information was disseminated. This could be measured as the traffic at the site within a particular time. b) The speed with which a claim is compensated may be taken as an efficiency metric. With the introduction of the IT, the claims would be compensated faster as the input lines are many and drop-down lists guide the public for easier completion of proforma and applications Effectiveness Metrics evaluate progress in the service. a) One benchmark could be the number of compensated applications from a set of applications claiming compensation. Studying the number of applications for compensation to the number compensated in that group will provide an idea about effectiveness of the project. The target should be 100%. If the percentage of claims grows close to 100%, the effectiveness of the IT services will be evident This percentage may be compared further to the percentage compensated prior to the introduction of information services. b) Customer satisfaction is another effectiveness metric. The number of people who are exposed to the information must increase in number. Online surveys with proformas may reveal the level of satisfaction. If the number has been increasing over the past few years, customer satisfaction may be gauged. ii. Three ways for improving the information systems. a) Employing a Development Manager to improve on the software could shorten the process of completion of the proforma for gathering information on the patients who could be claiming compensation. The dispensation of claims would reach a faster conclusion. The customers would be more satisfied and the backlog reduced. b) A software Quality Assurance group could assist the Development Manager to update the software and maintain the highest quality of work. The large number of beneficiaries of the National Medical would be less harassed. The efficiency of the system rises as a result. As the improvement is required periodically, the Department may be maintained. Frequent review and auditing maintains the efficiency and quality of the services of the Organization. c) Training programmes for the regular staff of the various departments enable them to keep up their level of efficiency in their individual work as the changes in the information services is a continuous effort. The quality of service and efficiency automatically rises. The National Medical would become a highly efficient organization. 3. Expanding the Information Technology Systems 3.1. Executive information system in National Medical The data in the COPS would be used by top- level executives for decision-making requirements. The CEO and managers of National Medical fall within this group. Meeting the goals of the organization is the final thought. This is also understood to be a kind of decision support system. The data obtained would be transformed into graphic displays and user interfaces which are easily managed. These form the base on which the executives are able to furnish strong reports and sufficient interpretations of the quality of service that the National Medical is offering. Analysis and comparison would provide the top executives the ability to highlight trends in the organization. Important variables would be gathered for identifying problems and highlighting opportunities. Data warehousing technologies would be used. Recently Business Intelligence is the term used for Executive Information Service. Microstrategy is what the executives develop from the basic information. The executives are able to distinguish data which is hardly used and important data. They also identify key or essential activities which are needed for meeting the goals of the organization efficiently and providing a high quality service. Their eyes are on the future of their service organization. Using their interpretations, better control of the operational section is inevitable. Planning, preparing the budget and controlling the performance follow. The organization gets a summary report on time using the executive information service. With all the information obtained, decision-makers are able to increase their efficiency. The executive information service allows easy tracking of information, performs filtration of data and provide information which is easily understood. 3.2. Decision support system in National Medical The decision support system is based on computer information comprising of software applications and hardware which support the decision-making of the organization. Useful data would be identified from the raw information data or documents or personal experience for gauging problems and drafting solutions. The system consists of inputs, user knowledge from expertise, outputs and decisions. The management, operations and planning sections are usually involved. Questions arising on a daily basis would be assessed and resolutions decided upon. The Logistics Procurement system aims at managing payment and delivery of the items used by the National Medical for the purpose of running its various business activities. The different branches would require stationery like printer paper and forms for collecting information. Whichever branch requires it puts up the request on the computer system specifying quantity and product number. Authorization is given by an officer in the state office. If the state office does not have the supply, the requested materials are generated and dispatched. These daily occurrences could be better managed through the decision supporting system. The Pharmaceutical benefits constitute another section which requires daily resolution. The details of the patients, medical providers, pharmacists and the medicines prescribed are entered into the information system on the computer. The decision supporting system can make the Pharmaceutical Benefits system more efficient too. High quality services would be the result. The data are readily available for efficient analysis. Reports obtained would be informative and rich in content. Data analysis would be facilitated. Decision support system enables decision making on an individual and group basis. The use of microstrategy enables easy formulation and use. The software permits the access from different sources so users may access only what they require. Analysis can reach a sophisticated level using the software. Flexibility is another advantage of microstrategy. The decision support system is extremely useful for sky-rocketing the efficiency and quality of service of the National Medical. The decision-making top level executives would be using the system. Read More