Business Feasibility - Lions Hospital Group Management System - Assignment Example

BUSINESS FEASIBILITY CASE STUDY: LIONS HOSPITAL GROUP MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (LHGMS) MARCH 2011 AUTHORS: COURSE DETAILS: Section: Course Code: Professor: Table of Contents Table of Contents 3 Hospital’s goals 4 Background 4 Current system 5 The rationale for the new information system 6 Scope of the project 8 Strategic network 8 Description of the scenario 9 New Technologies Introduced in the Design 9 Sydney LHG 10 Sydney LHG 11 Sydney LHG 12 Connectivity between Sydney LHG and Newcastle LHG 13 Choosing a network operating system 14 Network Security Measures 15 New look of the information systems 15 Cost Benefit Analysis 15 Risk assessment 16 Project approach 18 Conclusion 19 References 20 Hospital’s goals Background The client for this project, Lions Hospital Group is a private hospital which is located in Sydney. The main aim of this hospital is to be able to have a branch in every major city of Australia. This way, they will be able to have a large presence in Australia and be the private hospital of choice for many. The hospital started with the acquisition of two hospitals located in Sydney city. With the acquisition of private hospitals, there will be disparity of information systems platforms used in the various hospitals. Due to this disparity, there will be need to have a common system that will reflect the various activities which are used in the various branches. There will be need to have a common system that will have data from the various hospitals and be able to have an efficient data management system. With this, it is advisable that the various platforms that are used in the branches of the hospital are integrated well to suit the needs of all interested parties. One of the needs of the desired information systems is that it should be able to cater for the following functionalities: Increasing the doctor’s and administrator’s interactivity Supporting the nurses in participating in the whole process of treatment. Improving the data management of the whole system. All the branches of the hospital should be able to access to the whole system of the whole hospital. This way, data management will be managed well. Every organization strives to have integrated management systems, LHGMS is no exception. Current system At the moment, the LHG requires that the nurses complete the forms which are used for diagnosis. The doctors are also required to fill in the forms to show the updates of what they suggest for the patients. These forms are updated and shown to the administrators who will then have some information on what the patients they handle were suffering from. The various branches have different platforms and information systems; this means that it is very hard to have effective communication and integration data from these disparate systems. It is due to this that there is need to have an integrated system that will take in the whole organization and take in the data. When a patient is received, the process of the system is as follows: The diagnosis is done by the nurses and doctors Results from the diagnosis are stored in the local systems. This is not usually the case as the nurses prefer using the manual systems so that they do not complicate the reporting process. They have to report to the administrators about the patients and the ailments they had. They will then have to inform the responsible doctors through the administrators. The administrators will have to assign patients to the doctors, rather manually. The assigning is done manually and also informing the concerned doctors is done using phone calls and emails. The doctors will come and get the details about the particular patient and the ailment they have. They give the nurses the results so that it be typed and presented to the administrators. The doctors will keep on updating the status manually every time the client visits. There are files which are assigned to every new patient to the hospital. This process is rather tiresome. As is evidenced in the process above this will go on in all the branches that the hospital has. There are doctors who serve in more than one branch. This will mean that they will have to update files in all the branches that they serve. The rationale for the new information system To reduce the long process of opening files, writing the files, updating and reporting to the administrators, LHG decided that they need an integrated information system that will be used to get all the processes from system (Young-Hoon, 2005). This way they will be able to have one view of the systems of all the existing and potential branches that will either be acquired of created from scratch in future. The new system will help LHG to achieve the processes that are outlined below: Coming up with a database (this would make it easier and faster to track the updates of the various instances that the patient will have with both the nurses and the doctors). The database will handle all the encounters of the patient. Every encounter will be recorded in the database. All observations that the doctor will have with the patient will also be recorded in the database. There will be the creation of a one patient encounter management system where all the encounters that the patient will have with the hospital personnel will be handled. This will be possible with the use of smart cards which are already rolled in the pharmacy of the same hospital. These cards will contain the information of the patients and that every time the patient visits the hospital; they will carry with them the card. This will help the various departments and branches that the patient may be required to visit to better manage the patient data. The patient will not have to visit the initial encounter. The system will have all the encounters with the patients. With the use of smart cards, the whole organization will be in a position to manage all the encounters that the patient will have with the hospital. The whole branches will have one system where the patient management will be handled anywhere the patient feels they are comfortable visiting. Reducing the failing rate as the failure in receiving reports by the administrators will come to an end. There will be the reduction of costs that have been brought about by printing, buying files and sending emails to doctors. Reducing paperwork. Scope of the project The new system which will be done by Safe Solutions will allow the nurses and the doctors to fill electronic forms which they will send to the system so that it is stored in the database. The administrators would be in a position to monitor the work progress of the nurses and the doctors. They would also be in a position to know the patients and all the encounters with the hospital. Unlike the past, they will be able to know the work progress of all hospitals in all the cities. This will, however, depend on the success of the new system that will be installed in the organizations. Each nurse in all the hospital branches will be given an account which they will be able to monitor the progress of their posts in the network (Joseph, 2003). Likewise, all the doctors and the administrators will be able to access the network through their personal accounts. These personal accounts will allow the doctors to post the diagnosis and all the updates of their patients. This will eradicate the paperwork which is currently experienced in the system. There will also be an online payment system which will be incorporated to the system which would allow the payment process to be done online. This will make the harmonization of the payments in all the branches an easier process. Strategic network One of the most important aspects of an information system which spans a wide geographical area is the network. It is evident that the hospital will have to invest in an intranet. It is worth noting that the hospital has had various information systems which have been installed in the various branches. These information systems will have to be connected in a network. The good thing is that the systems have been done by Safe Solutions. The issue of incompatibility will be dealt by these same providers. There will need to have an intranet which will connect all the cities in which the organization has hospitals in operation. The network will then help the organization to install and integrate the various systems as one. Description of the scenario The scenario given for this feasibility study is of an Australian private hospital, Lions Hospital Group, with two offices located in Sydney and Newcastle. There will be a need to have another office as the expansion continues. This new branch will be located in Rockdale. Each department in the company has a separate network on which computers are connected either with wireless routers or hubs with computers running a variety of operating system such as windows XP, Vista as well as Mac OS X. There is also file server running Windows Server 2003 in the Sydney Head Office and also a website that is being hosted in the city which is accessible on the Internet. The aim of this network redesign is to provide a new network that is not only easier to troubleshoot in case of fault occurrence but also provide resistance against any attack or malicious software infection. The new network redesign will also help the various information systems that are installed in the various cities to communicate efficiently. New Technologies Introduced in the Design There are a lot of new technologies which will be introduced in the new network design. The current network design at all the offices is based mostly on the use of LAN without much support for accessing information from other departments. In order to organize their structure and to provide connectivity Routers have been introduced at all three offices. Furthermore, in order to protect the computers from external attacks, such as viruses, worms or crackers, Firewalls will have to be put in front of all connections leading to external network. In Sydney hospital branch and in Newcastle branch, Hubs will be replaced by Switches. The main reason for this replacement is that Hubs do not offer collision domain break up. That is, all computers or other devices of the network use the same channel to communicate which has a fixed bandwidth (i.e. the bandwidth is divided between the equipments). As a result of this, frequent collision can occur on the network when two or more devices try to communicate at the same time, severely affecting the network performance. A switch on the other hand, breaks up collision domain on each of its port, which means that, any device connected to the switch has full bandwidth available to it, which can be utilized for transmission. Also, the Sydney branch as well as the Newcastle branch will require new connection for external connectivity which will also introduce new modem equipment. Several features of the existing network have been kept intact in the new design. The introduction of WAN connectivity between offices has introduced new equipment as well as changes to the existing design at all three offices. A detail description is discussed in the following lines. Sydney LHG The Sydney LHG branch comprised of two separate networks which provided resources to their particular department using two Wi-Fi 802.11G networks. These networks have been kept intact in the new design (though, they could have been replaced with wired lines to provide protection against interception). However, it needs to be made sure that both wireless networks offer a secure connection with WPA2. However, in order to provide connectivity between then, a router has been introduced between the networks. This introduction, also allows for keeping the networks separate as well as breaking up of collision and broadcast domain. Hence in case of a virus attack, it will remain confined to only one network. The Internet connection of the Sydney LHG will be shared between the two networks (can be through Router or Firewall) and the office network has been protected from external network, through the use of Firewall. Sydney LHG The Sydney LHG had a mash up of several computer used to perform different activities. A structure has been introduced here as well, by dividing the computer on the base of their activities. The hubs have been replaced in the new design by two switches which provide connectivity of devices with each other while providing full bandwidth as well as possibility to extend the current network. The two switches are connected to the Main Switch which further extends the expansion capability of the network. The Main Switch is then connected to the routers which performs the routing of incoming and outgoing data. In this Office, connectivity to Internet is also provided through an ADSL2 Connection for which protection has been provided to the internal network through the use of the Firewall. Sydney LHG From the report that was collected in eth visit and from the liaison officer, the Sydney LHG also achieved interconnectivity through a Hub. Apart from offering restricted capabilities due to the use of Hub, this network offered a new challenge in security since the office also hosted a public web site of the hospital, whose computer was also connected to the internal network through the same Hub. One of the suggested solutions would be to disconnect the web server computer completely from the network and operate it as stand alone. But this option will take away the facility of remotely accessing the website for maintenance and updates. Thus, the network design for this office uses two routers. The first router is used to route data and information from within the office. The second router will be used to restrict the hidden the internal network from the external network so that any attack on the website would be limited to web server computer only. The connectivity between users computers have been provided by using a switch instead of a Hub, for advantages earlier defined in the report. There is also an existing ATM connection has not been used to provide connectivity to WAN. This will be done because the use of router on ATM connection will be quite expensive in terms of budget, while using the Web Server computer to switch the data from internal network to WAN would have slowed down the website considerably. This purpose will be accomplished by connecting the Sydney LHG Router to an ADSL2 connection. All connections to public networks have been protected by the use of Firewalls. Connectivity between Sydney LHG and Newcastle LHG There are a number of options available for connecting the Sydney offices and the Newcastle. These options include purchase of Dark Fiber, through ISDN or through ADSL connections. In this scenario, we have preferred to use ADSL2 connectivity which not only offer a high bandwidth but also is cheaper. The WAN connectivity is provided through the purchase of IP Virtual Private Network (VPN) service from the Internet Service Provider (ISP) (Mitchell, 2009). This VPN services allows for a secure network to be established over a public network such as internet, while still making internet services available to all the offices. Choosing a network operating system In the new network, it is recommended that Linux should be the choice for Network Operating System. It is because it is not only cheaper but faster and offer same capabilities as the Microsoft Windows Server operating system. It is particularly recommended for the Server PC which is hosting the website and the various information systems of the hospital. Windows operating system is also the prime choice for attackers to break into while security compromises in Linux are much less reported. Network Security Measures For security measures, it is recommended that each department will have to have their own domain to log into. Thus each user will have an account to access the network with. Furthermore, Antivirus and personal firewall software should also be installed on each PC. Each of the three networks is also protected by installation of Firewall which controls the access to and from the external network. The implementation of internal network is also hidden behind routers. All firewall's and routers have also been protected with passwords only known to employee from network administration department. New look of the information systems Having had a good and efficient network, there will be the need to have information systems being integrated together to enable the communication between all the branches being easier in adoption. The new system will be linked to the headquarters so that it is easier to assign and manage the patients. The security of the system will be achieved through the use of accounts which will have privileges and rights depending on the administrative level of the staff concerned (Harrison, & Lock, 2004). Each staff member will be able to send requests only on the levels they are assigned. The network and system administrators will assign the privileges to the various staff that is in the hospital. The overall network management will be done in the Sydney headquarter. Cost Benefit Analysis Projected costs Categories Predicted costs Hardware acquisition New server LHG has servers already, computers, scanners, and printers. This will mean that it is not necessary to purchase new hardware apart from the server to be able to handle the pressure 7,000 AU$ Programming costs *including testing period AU$150,000 Staff training *there will be need to train external staff who are working with the nurses and the doctors in addition to the administrators AU$8,000 Maintenance AU$900 (annually) Downtime expenses (system failure) *Money that will be lost because there are no patients being administer to the hospital when the system is down. AU$1,300 Network redesign AU$2,000 Total costs AU$169,200 Risk assessment The risks that are associated with this projected are shown in the table below: Risk Importance Likelihood User rejects the new network design and feel of the new information system H _ High maintenance costs than the estimated value L L System is complicated to be used H M Wrong budget estimation H M Wrong time estimation H L Depending on the risks that are identified in the table above, the projected discount rate is 8%. The table below shows the calculated discount factor and the Net Present Value: Year Projected cash flow Discount factor @ 8% Discounted cash flow (AU$) 0 -169,200 1 -169,200 1 54,600 0.9259 50,554 2 62,400 0.8573 53,495 3 109,200 0.7938 86,682 4 124,800 0.7350 91,728 5 156,000 0.6806 106,173 Net Profit = 284,500 AU$ NPV = 166,132 AU$ Project approach The project will be best suited to follow the waterfall model. The limited scope of iteration will not affect the project negatively since all the requirements are known and the uncertainty is low. The following are the reasons used to choose the model: 1. Uncertainties are low a. There are no risks that can be said to have a likelihood of high level as compared to the risks table. Plans will have to be made so that the risks are prevented from happening. One way of making sure that the system is not rejected by the users is to have a good study of the requirements of the system (Young-Hoon, 2005). b. The users and Safe Solutions are aware of the product and the processes that are associated with it. c. The environment and the resources that will be used in the project are known to Safe Solutions. d. The project team has worked in similar projects in the same hospital and are the ones assigned to work on the project. e. Safe Solutions is a familiar on; they will use it in the project. 2. The project complexity is low a. The process of dealing with the patients will be defined and studied and the all the requirements will be gathered for. b. It will have a small number of users; the study of the requirements will therefore not take so much time. c. The requirements are solid and have low likelihood of changing as the project is underway in its development. The current system has been there for long. The electronic system would use the same steps as those that are used in the manual system. Conclusion With the analysis that has been done above, it meets the requirements of the hospital. The project can be described as feasible and the hospital should go ahead with the implementation of the system. References Harrison, D., & Lock, J. (2004). Advanced project management: a structured approach‎. Illinois: Gower Publishing, Ltd. Joseph, P. (2003). PMP Project Management Professional Study Guide. Columbia: McGraw-Hill Professional. Mitchell, B. (2009). VPN Tutorial. Retrieved on March 19th, 2011 from http://compnetworking.about.com/od/vpn/a/vpn_tutorial.htm Young-Hoon Kwak (2005). A brief history of Project Management: The story of managing projects. 2 (3). Read More