Incorporating a Hospital Information System with Hospital Quality Assurance Program System - Case Study Example

Names Professor Subject Date Introduction: Hospitals having information system is not enough. It is a priority to ensure that the system used can store, manipulate data and produce reports when queried. It is important to incorporate a Hospital Information System with Hospital Quality Assurance Program system (H-QAP) in a hospital set up. Hospital Quality Assurance Program (H-QAP) is a web application. Its primary aim is to achieve compliance with SOPs about medical devices. It will improve the operations of a hospital, and ensure that the quality of data is not affected. For a successful development and implementation of H-QAP system, we started by implementing risk management. Quality managers in a hospital will begin by choosing one topic from a chain of topics associated with medical devices that are predefined in H-QAP system. Then he/she will access it in the system to generate a score, a three-layer audit will be executed based on the score. The rapid escalation process will be adopted, this was used when standards were not attained, the process is rapidly put in place, and it is audited again. If compliance with SOP is not accomplished quickly, the matter is escalated to a higher level of authority. Project Aims: The aim of HQAP system is achieving compliance with SOPS this will help in minimizing and eliminating risks. It will ensure that the hospitals are safe for patients and clinical staff. Another aim of this project is to centralize data in the hospital. Having a centralized database, it will improve the operations of a hospital because incompliance is recorded and tracked in the system. It will benefit the hospital because managers can get reports in real time which will improve hospital operations. Additionally, by implementing HQAP system, there will be an improvement in customer satisfaction because they can give feedback. For example, they can fill a satisfaction survey. Lastly, HQAP is meant to improve cross-disciplinary collaboration, this will enable different people working from different disciplines work smoothly. HQAP is a web-based system this means that hospital information will not be stored locally. Therefore, it is vulnerable to data insecurity. Hospital information is very sensitive, HQAP ensures that the security is in place by ensuring that only authorised people access the information. Approaches: To deliver a quality web application as well as involving best practices in the industry, we used the following technologies and tools in this project a. Ruby on Rails Ruby on Rails is one of the most used open-source web application frameworks. It provides MVC (Model-View-Controller) pattern and use active record pattern to manage the interaction with multiple popular relation database management system such as SQLite, MySQL, PostgreSQL and so on. More importantly, there are many open-source projects/plugins can be adapted to ROR development to shorten the development time. To develop this system, we used ruby on rails as a programming language. Ruby is a quick and powerful language, it has a feature known as ruby on rails. Rails are web framework; they are used by web developers to speed up web development. Its primary objective is to allow the programmer to develop a website fast and simple. It has the feature of mark-and-sweep garbage, gives the programmer's ability to code without having to keep referencing counts in extension libraries (Gross). Its automatic object-relational mapping class features makes it more powerful. Programmers using ruby on rails do not need to specify the column names when defining a class. Instead, rails will retrieve the information on its own. It also has an inbuilt testing framework; this enables developers to write test cases that lead to a creation of a reliable and robust code. It also has a strong serialization tool and database management. b. Test data design We used Test Data Design(TDD) technique. It is based on creating automated test. We created a test code first rather the system code. While coding H-QAP, we used to test each development and coding phase of the system progressively. For example, we developed a Test code that we used to test Database, that is whether the system had proper data storage, Users accessibility to the stored data in the Database, we also carried out data security and format of the data entered test whether it was as designed. We also carried out Authentication of users test this was to ensure that only the authorized personnel were able to login into the system. We carried out functionality tests of H-QAP, which was done continuously to ensure that the system was able to meet user requirements. We carried out tests on how the user was able to interact with the system this was to ensure that the system was easy to use and the time it was taking to perform a function and update on real time. By performing tests in phases, we were able to ensure that the bugs did not reoccur in different stages. We used the test codes that we obtained to develop the system. The test codes that we obtained were to develop the system code. TDD has these benefits; It makes it easier to carry out a test that makes it clearer optimal and easier to understand. It makes the system easier to debug, and quality of the code is increased. TDD guarantees that system features are all covered by a test, hence be sure that the future code changes do not have an effect on the completed features. c. Deployment Deployment involves installation, test and implementation of an application. Web deployment has changed with time due to technological change. Unlike in the past where deployment involved installing applications on the server before running it, today a developer does not need to worry about IT infrastructure anymore. Developers run their applications in the “cloud” using Platform as a service (PaaS). For example, Heroku. To deploy HQAP system we used a Heroku. It assists the developers to build an application and run it in the cloud. It allows developers to spend much of their time on the code and not on server management. The following are the benefits associated with Heroku: Easy setup- since it is a PaaS one does not need to know how to install and do the configuration of technologies used in web development. For example, MySQL, unicorn, Apache among others. There is no initial price. Heroku offers a free tier that makes it perfect for beginners There is a community that provides support. It also contains an excellent documentation. • It is greatly supported since it sits on top of Amazon web services • It has a GIT that makes it easier and quicker to deploy the web • Heroku supports scale. For example, you can scale from a small prototype to an enterprise very fast. d. Github Github respiratory is where we used to store our code. Git is a distributed control system. It was developed by Linus Torvalds.the benefits of using git are By copying our project into git, we were able to get our project's history. We can work on our machine without interacting with the server. Github contains a GIT that is used to manage and store revisions of projects. Github technology allows storage of code that can be used later. e. Testing Every software product must be tested to identify bugs and debug them. Testing is also carried out to ensure that a system performs its function as it was expected. We used RSpec for the testing HQAP system. Rspec is a behavior driven development (BDD) tool. It is a great tool for writing a human specification that can direct and validate the development of an application. The main benefit of using RSpec is that It gives a readable output. Results This section contains description of what we were able to achieve in the development and implementation of HQAP: Compliance with SOPS: We were able to deliver a web application that implements Hospital Quality Assurance Program (H-QAP) that achieves compliance with SOPs about medical devices. For us to be successful, we had to implement a risk management process. It helped us to foresee any action that could have caused the system to fail. Document centralization: Centralization involves keeping all records of an individual in a particular place. HQAP system uses centralized document storage. It This has some advantages to the hospital. For example, duplication of records is avoided, there is an improvement in documents because only authorized individuals can access the document, the organization is improved among others. Quality data: We were able to achieve results of ensuring that the quality of a document is maintained in hospitals by having quality managers in a department or organisation. Quality managers have a role to choose one topic from a series of options related to medical devices that are predefined in the system, then he/she will access it and generate a score, a three-layer audit will be performed based on the score. We also implemented a rapid escalation process that will be used in case a standard is not achieved, actions will be rapidly put in place, and the status will be audited again. In a case where compliance with SOP is not achieved quickly the matter is escalated to a higher level of authority. In the hospital quality assurance program, we have two users: admin and a basic user. When admin signs he/she has authority to register a new user in the system, create an organization, invite users. Managing user roles. He/she has a right to perform the following operations in a document; create, review, approve and sign off a document. Admin has a right to assess the risk score for a topic and create a new topic. He/she can create an audit for a topic, review, approve and publish audit. On the other hand, a basic user is limited to some operations in the HQAP system. He/she has a right to register, sign in, create a topic. He/she performs the following operations in a document, create, review, approve a document and sign off a document. On the topic he/she can audit a topic, and approve. Security: Data security involves ensuring that data is protected from any harm and is available to only authorised users. HQAP ensures that there is security of hospital information. It is achieved by ensuring that for you to be able to access the information you have to be registered first. After you are registered, you have to provide login details every time you want to access information. Improvement of operations: HQAP has improved the operations of hospitals because a user can run a report to get the history of a patient instead of going through the files. Using HQAP system allows a patient to give feedback on his/her satisfaction. It will help the hospitals to have fewer complaints. Conclusion It is important for hospitals to ensure that there is a safety of their employees and patient in the hospital environment. Hospitals should ensure that apart from having a hospital information system they also have a hospital quality assurance program(HQAP) system. Development and implementation of HQAP system in a hospital environment have benefited the hospitals. Not only by being able to centralize their documents but also to improve their operations. HQAP can ensure that quality in a hospital is achieved by making sure that there are various levels of auditing. For you to use the system you have to be a registered user, in case unregistered user try to access the system, an error occurs, and he/she is asked to log in again. HQAP system archives all the above and in the process it saves companies time and mo Work cited Gross, Melanie. ‘Benefits of Programming in Ruby - gHacks Tech News.’ gHacks Technology News, 6 July 2009. Web. 29 May 2015. Read More