Social Analysis of CommonKADS Modeling Project for Emergency Medical Services - Assignment Example

Name University Course Tutor Date Social Analysis of CommonKADS Modeling Project for Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Introduction This assignment evaluates on social analysis of the project which was done to computerize operations of Emergency Medical Services (EMS). In this project there are several social problems which arose which will be analyzed. The problems being analyzed are social in nature such that they affect the users of the services socially and affect how they relate with the services and among them selves. Implementation of knowledge system automates most of the processes in the health centers but it also has some negative impact to the social environment which it is being implemented. Social analysis will be based on comparison of consistencies and inconsistencies of the operations of the emergency medical services which were implemented and suggest improvement to ensure that the problems being caused are solved. For proper identification of social problems it is advisable to indentify the methods of social analysis which exists. Emergency Medical Services (EMS) over view Implementation of Emergency Medical Services (EMS) was aimed at improving the operations of the organization by implementing new services which will entail customer care services and general practitioners clinic, franchising and outsourcing services. Therefore the problems which are being addressed affects the users of the system in different way and especially on how the relate with each other (Prusak & Davenport, 1997). Employees in different departments were used to relate to each other much more often by visiting each other as they work. Because most of the operations were manual hence they were able to meet as they consulted each other or even share the files. Introduction of automation in the processes they could not meet as they used to be this reduced their socialization as they could not meet when they are doing their work. This later has developed to poor relation of the employees and the numbers of employees who do not know each other has been increasing. Human resource department has been experiencing problems of managing the staff in different departments. Once the department has recruited the employees it does no long have direct contact with the employees. This made supervision much more difficult as Human resources department had to invent new ways of monitoring employee’s delivery. Therefore, poor supervision has been the main contributor to of poor service delivery even though the operations have been computerized. The different departments in the organization are conflicting because implementation of CommonKAD knowledge merged all the details of the different departments in the same database. The database is meant to provide ease access to data and information, however it has instead brought conflict of employees in different departments. Initially before implementation of the centralized database the employees would have their transactions at their department and they would not be integrated with others. Hence, there was sense of ownership of the records or information in the database. At the moment all transactions are stored in the same database therefore their applications are therefore much more diversified and information which is supposed to be classified as confidential and secret of the department is accessible to all users who have access to the centralized database (Vojdani, 2003). Such departmental differences have brought poor working relation between different departments an issue which should be addressed so that it does not affect their productivity. Emergnecy Medical Services Franchise for General Practitioners & Patients Clinics and Patients has made the process of service delivery to be improved because it is being done by professionals. However, franchising which was introduced is viewed by the old wmployees of the organization as a threat to their jobs and stay in the oganization. Employees are very much affected when there is change which is imposed by the administration and they have a feeling that if the changes are implemented they will loss their jobs. Therefore, the employees are being rebelious on introduction of franchising of expertriates in different operations of the company as they feel threated that they might loss their jobs. Such negative attitude towards the frnachised services will negatively affect their success in the organization because they can not succeed witout the support of the employes. End users of the systems beings implemented are very intrumental in its success as they will always assit the employees and systems being used to deliver high quality services. It is therefore advisable to involve all the end users in formulation of the intended changes such that they would accept it and support its implementation without resistace as its being experinced. The organization structure is not clear and the management staff after integration of data/information it did not clearly stipulate the boundaries of operations of the different management levels. Such differences in the organizational structure make it not possible to indentify the appropriate centers of power which should govern the organizations operations in different levels of management. Such misunderstanding in the organization has brought managerial crises which need to be rectified by restructuring the organizational chart of the entire organization and redefine the new duties for each administrator with clear guidelines on what needs to be done. Once such measures are implemented the organization will not experience the managerial crises being witnesses recently. Organizational Management Problems Some of the major limitation on the implementation of information technology (IT) in the EMS, which would gear the process of identifying problems and improvement in the services delivery to the patients, resources and the organization impact on supporting implementation have been a big limitation to the implementation of CommonKADS Modeling Project for Emergency Medical Services (EMS). Time and resources have been a headache for the implementation of these programs models that are knowledge based are usually limited and the organization shy away from funding them, however CommonKads has been associated with incorrectness and many managers are claiming than it is better to have analysis orient more than behavioral model, most of this managers have no idea of the advantages of the CommonKads but shy away due to myth that they observe about advance in technology. Limitation of CommonKads for MAS It has been evaluated that CommonKads was never developed to sustain MAS, the main restriction of this direct application to MAS arose from the framework of CommonKads CM. the limitation and restriction usually arises in the fact that CM genuinely compacts with human computer interaction, however, this usually interferes with MAS protocols that are at not parallel with the primitive protocols of both model injection of input and output for all tasks that have been carried through between a KBS and User (Prusak & Davenport, 1997). CommonKads is usually considered to complex while interaction between computer to computer interaction, the MAS usually allow and authenticate the multi-partner transaction and this is restricted by the CommonKads CM in a natural way, however, this has been rectified recently and has been viewed as very complex depending on the nature of the implementation and the development is known as coordination model. Hidden Cost while Implementing Projects for EMS While trying very hard to import changes in the services delivery, in the sector of medicine mostly in the EMS most of the organizations, that are implementing this mode of transition are faced with variety of hidden charges that overrides their overheads of this projects (Grady, 2001). Usually most of the financial analyst warns that some of the hidden extra charges are apparent and others are not. The areas that are mostly affected are the operational, equipment, life cycle planning, administrative, communications, training and technical support. When trying to implement new technology in the old system it is important to underlie the need of the population, the scope of the achievement and scope of the project. However, many do this with this consideration trying to serve the people; they are later served with expenditure bills that are way out of the budget proportion they had devised and estimated. Mostly the part that usually brings about higher cost and extra overheads is the fact that most of the implement are basically new, and thus they need new advancement in training and mostly it has occurred that training as not in the budget, this will add the budget of training the personnel that would be handling the machinery. This has been because of the advancement in technology it makes those that are in the field of medicine to be technology challenged on the new technology that are being coined monthly. Communication has also been another expensive factor, this is mostly on the part of relying key information to the second party whom may have interest and in need of the information, this has been question on the accuracy of the information that nurses gathers in the emergency room (ER), advancement of technology has brought a lot of confusion within those in this department prompting further learning which also is cost effective but resources consuming. Introduction of devices like Bluetooth Serial Port Profile (SPP) in multi-agent system which is devised for the monitoring of the condition of chronic diseases, not only is the cost of these devices high to also getting accurate reading from them, this will eventually be relied on training and orienting the staff to be compatible and this also needs extra resources (March, 1997). The machinery also comes with some added cost like shipping, maintenance and installation, in the long run the department would also have to employ taskforce for maintaining them which add cost altogether. Lack of Internet Services in Rural Areas Internet has played major roles in the implementation of new technologies, some of the common setback is usually relied on lack of internet, there are key lesson that usually underlies in the provision of internet in the whole EMS technology advancement implementation process. Most of the machineries are computerized and they are constantly been fed data, these data some of them are from unsecure location and they may have virus and change the operating system because it may be infected with the virus and as most of these machines are life saving putting the patient at risk. Most of the antiviruses are actually constantly updated with the internet; in the cases of remote location this would pose a grave danger to the dependant of such machines. The best and easy form of communication has nowadays become through the internet, this would rely on the progression and monitoring of the quality services and providing doctors with updates that are relevant with the maybe advancement of certain cardiac disease (Nonaka & Konno, 1998). Over the net solution are basically easily accessible and the best medical offers on medical supplies are advertised. Having no internet connection actually minimizes these advantages. Also lack of communication has been connected to the alarming reduction of pharmacist ideology of provision of innovative prescription and sterile services to the community this is due to lack of electronic data collection due to lack of internet. Most of the pharmacist have devised use of remote dispensing under the new project which requires internet called the Physician Dispensing Model however another limitation not only being the lack of internet services is that some states practices laws prohibit this model. This model would have run an automated pharmaceutical that would have provided the missing retail pharmacy services within the community. The video technology and the internet use were the main concern of the authority on rejecting this model. References Grady, B. (2001). Hidden Costs of TeleMedical Health. Baltimore: University of Maryland press. Prusak, L & Davenport, 1997. Information Politics: Information Is Not Innocent. New York: Oxford University Press March, J. 1997. ‘Information Politics: Information Is Not Innocent’, Information Ecology. pp. 67-82 Nonaka, I & Konno, N. 1998. The Concept Of "Ba": Building A Foundation For Knowledge Creation. California Management Review 40(3) 40-54 Vojdani, A. 2003. ‘Tools for Real-Time Business Integration and Collaboration’, IEEE Trans. Power Syst., 18(2), pp. 555–562 Read More