The Healthcare Information System - Case Study Example

An information system refers to the study of specific technology implementation criteria which focuses on collecting, analyzing, processing, filtering, creating, and distributing data to the users of the information. Organizations and people use information systems to plan and manage their working conditions to minimize time wastage and making work more accessible. A healthcare information system is a system constructed to accommodate the institution's data. Most healthcare organizations cover a wide area extending their services to a large population, including patients and the workers surrounding them. Mostly, healthcare information systems track patient's progress, store patient's records as well as transmit the data to another location. Also, the healthcare information system regulates stock control in matters concerning medicine distribution and accommodation by patients in the hospital. Personnel scheduling conflicts can also get solved by adopting a management system. However, a healthcare information system is subject to reduced efficiency under minimal maintenance. A faulty healthcare management system may cause data distortion and manipulation as well as an overall data loss in the organization. Moreover, unforeseen errors in the management system that affect the performance of the clinical care and the safety of the healthcare institution may harm the patient. As the healthcare information Officer, I have noted a failure in the recently installed information system; therefore, in this report, I have discussed the general information system and the source of failure and indicated similar healthcare organizations that have been experiencing the same system failures.

The organization faced different information technology system failures in the critical areas of work. One of the system faults involved led to a clinical error that staged severe allergic reactions caused by the prescribed medication. The IT fault led to the wrong drug prescription, which ended up harming the patient.

Another IT problem identified is the computer network fault that led to delays in the system operation. Consequently, it was not possible to make a follow up on missing test results (Kim, Coiera & Magrabi, 2017). Though the harm was not directly staged on the patient, the laboratory technicians could not trace the missing patients’ tests.

A fault in the electronic backup system made some files containing patients’ records become corrupt and could no longer open as they appeared as shortcuts on the computer. Subsequently, doctors could not trace the historical background of patient health records.

Factors that led to the Healthcare System Failure

There are four factors as described below, which led to the failure in the information system of our organization.

• Lack of enough storage capacity to backup data sufficiently and a poorly structured restore procedure.
• Unreliable configuration management technique that made the hardware and software systems fail to indicate what was recently updated. Hence, it was hard to tell which update caused a corrupt file error.
• The data stored in the computers was not correctly integrated; hence an attempt to make multiple processes led to missing test results.
• Some of the personnel are not conversant with the newly adopted management information system; thus, they wrongly keyed in the coding mode.

Organizations that Have Experienced System Failures

System failure has been a common problem not only in our organization but also in other two neighboring healthcare organizations underwent through similar system breakdown. One of the healthcare organization that is famous for its robotic surgical intervention faced an interpretation error by the robots during surgery. This activity resulted in a severe injury on the patient.

The other healthcare organization faced challenges in issuing a drug prescription to one of its patients due to a clinical error staged by an IT problem. The patient's condition becomes severe, with a lot of swelling on the legs and some parts of the head. Observable signs on the patient suggested an allergic reaction to the patient body due to mixed medication. The effect of the IT complication helped doctors make wrong decisions regarding what type of drug the patient is to be given.

Faulty healthcare IT problems mostly stage an impact on the organization and the patient. On the patient, unforeseen system failures led to:

• Development of new and severe conditions than previously was.
• Lack of confidence in the doctors working in our healthcare institution due to misinformed and wrong decisions.
• Prolonged the healing process as missing patient’s records could not be traced for deciding on the treatment option.

However, the outcomes extended towards affecting the organization through:

• Lowering the healthcare organization's self-confidence in handling critical patient's condition.
• Lowering the performance of the organization due to faulty systems.
• Decreased company revenues as customers deviated into seeking treatment options from related healthcare institutions.

Several healthcare organization officers, including the intuition human resource manager and the health records officer, raised their concerns concerning the faulty information systems on the institution and termed it as diminishing and destroying the reputation of the healthcare organization. Potential clients and some of the institution stakeholders deviated from investing with the healthcare institution due to uncertainties and reduced confidence.

The effects of the IT problems to the patients and the organization in the related institutions made technical teams developed measures to prevent future similar problems that would create inconveniences by:

• Training healthcare practitioners on how to operate the computerized electronic systems in the institution (Gupta & Khurana, 2016).
• Creating awareness concerning a new management information system and how it works.
• Expanding on data storage and recovery options to trace back patient’s records.
• Installing automatic fault detection gadgets notify and send notifications concerning an IT problem and describes an alternative solution to the problem.

As the healthcare information officer, I would suggest three outcomes following the stated IT problems. One, following a patient’s increased suffering due to the wrong prescription, the organization may be questioned concerning the extent of knowledge by the practitioners. The second suggestion is that the affected patient can sue the institution following missing tests, which may be assumed as interfering with the patient's privacy. Lastly, a potential outcome on the institution would be uninstalling the management information system and replace it with one that most individuals are conversant with and easy to use. What happened to the information system is evident as it has reduced the performance in the healthcare system; therefore I agree that the setbacks of the organization violate the ethics and code of conduct as set by the institution management.

Recommendations

Following system failures in healthcare, I would recommend three measures to take to control a similar fault in the future.

• The personnel should be trained on a newly installed management information system so that they become aware of its operations (La Torre et al., 2017).
• The healthcare system should expand on safeguarding patients’ records by creating alternative storage devices and backup techniques.
• The organization should ensure the hardware and software applications on the information system are successfully configured to avoid file corruption when updating them.

The government requires that every healthcare provider complies with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy Rule, which is aimed at protecting patient's data. The policy allows for healthcare workers to access patient’s information but not giving them an option to disclose the data for specific reasons.

In conclusion, the healthcare information system performs critical and complex tasks beyond the ability of the human effort. Such activities include collecting, creating, protecting, processing, storing, and generating patient information for further references by the doctor and proper prescription. A faulty healthcare information system creates inconveniences on the normal working of the organization and may cause health problems to the patient, such as allergies. Same as other healthcare organizations, our organization should aim at overcoming system faults and prevent loss of patient data by establishing reliable backup options. Also, healthcare organizations should work in line with the federal policy on keeping a patient's information private and not to disclose it to the public.