Challenges Employees Face with Electronic Health Records - Research Paper Example

? Challenges Employees Face with Electronic Health Records Module 4 Ruchi Patel HCA 500 Prof. Peters Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3 Introduction 3 Research Strategy 3 Sampling Strategy 4 Data collection instrument 6 Question Specifications 9 Ethical Consideration 11 Conclusion 12 Works Cited 13 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Introduction In this section, the researcher will discuss briefly about the methodology that will be used to conduct the research. Any research is incomplete without having systematic procedure for data collection and interpretation of collected data (Saunders, Lewis, and Adrian 100-102). It has been already mentioned in the module 1 that I am going to use survey method in order to collect data from staff at an ophthalmology centers and in this section, the researcher will pen down how staff of the ophthalmology centers selected as sample for the survey. Hence, there will be three parts in the research methodology, 1- description of the research strategy, 2- description of sampling strategy and 3- detail description and justification of the data collection instruments. As the researcher will use questionnaire survey method to collect data hence the study will also highlight ethical issues associated with the paper. Research Strategy The researcher has the option to select either qualitative research or quantitative research to conduct the analysis but the researcher will use quantitative research techniques for analyzing demographic variables while qualitative methodology will be used in order to analyze data from the perception perspective of respondents. Quantitative research methodology helps researchers to address “what is” and “what might be” components in any research question while qualitative methodology helps in understanding perception of respondents (Roslender 250). Qualitative research methodology can also be used in order to social praxis of the research problem or critical issues regarding any kind of process change (Tinker 18.1; 101). Although these researchers used quantitative research methodology for accounting research but quantitative research methodology can be successfully used for addressing business research problems (Saunders, Lewis, and Adrian 100-102). Hence the researcher will use mix of quantitative and qualitative research technique backed by primary and secondary data sources. Key purpose of this paper is to understand “how employees at Eye Health Vision Centers feel about the transition from paper charts to Electronic Health Records” Hence the questionnaire will be decided on the basis of this primary research questions and staff in the ophthalmology centers will be the key participants in the questionnaire survey. As mentioned in the module 1, a particular ophthalmology centre (name of the centre will not be used due to confidentiality norm in ethical form) will be selected as the study setting. Any survey is incomplete without questionnaire while close ended questionnaire used in order to check response of respondents on particular topic and open ended questions are used in order to gather perception of respondents. However, in case of medical research on perception of staff about particular system, it is better to use open ended questionnaire (Whiddett, Hunter, Engelbrecht and Handy 75; 532). Hence, the researcher will use open ended questions will be used in order to understand experience of staff at ophthalmology centre regarding transition from paper charts to Electronic Health Records. There is more than 40 staff in the ophthalmology centre and they work in different department in the ophthalmology centre hence researcher will need to identify mutually exclusive but collectively exhaustive sample size which can represent the behavior of sample population. Hence, in the next section, the researcher will brief the sampling strategy that has been selected for the research. Sampling Strategy In the ophthalmology centre, there are more than 40 employees and each of the employees has different experience regarding Electronic health records. Hence, probabilistic sampling method will not be used due to the fact that each staff has not equal probability of getting selected. In such context, the researcher will use convenience sampling as part of non-probability sampling in order to collect data respondents (Duarte and Saraiva 25.8; 824-841). 15 staff has been selected as respondents as per convenience of the researcher. Convenience sampling is the most cost effective time saving procedure to select sample for the research (Chen and Chou 29.7; 1003-9). However, there are some limitations associated with the selection of convenience sampling method in this research paper such as, 1- sample size of 15 might not represent the behavior of all the staff in ophthalmology centre who are facing challenge during transition from paper charts to Electronic Health Records and 2- there are chances for conducting sampling error (unexplained error). However, these limitations of the sampling process will be reduced by doing reliability test on the questionnaire. The researcher has personally met the respondents and conducted the interview with staff in order to collect data from them. Primary data has been collected through interview process while secondary data has been collected by the researcher from books, peer-reviewed journals regarding the function of Electronic Health Records and employee behavior in response to transition from paper charts to Electronic Health Records. The researcher conducted literature review consisting of research works of previous research scholars Electronic Health Records and use Electronic Health Records in ophthalmology centers which can be used to validate the research findings. It has been believed that majority of staff in service centers tend to follow psychological contract with employer that they will be treated fairly if they support any innovation in workplace (Shields 187-200 and Mukhopadhyay 5.1; 41-55). The concept of social cognitive theory and psychological contract can be used in order to understand employee behavior in response to transition from paper charts to Electronic Health Records. To understand the relevance of these two theories, the researcher conducted the sample interview of staff at ophthalmology centre. Data collection instrument In the draft questionnaire of the paper, there were two parts such as section for open ended question and another section for demographic questions. Demographic aspects of the respondents will be collected through close ended survey while there will be five open ended questions for the interview process. Generally, employees in healthcare system face difficulties in adapting with technological shift such as implementation of system automation process and there can be various drivers which can create difficulties for them to cope with newly implemented system (Longo 32.3; 213-25). Hence, the research problem is perceptional in nature which might not be framed by doing close ended survey. Hence, open ended interview has been used to collect data from respondents. Demographic Questionnaire (Sample size is 15 ophthalmology centre staff) [Tick on only one option] Interview of Respondents 1. Tell me about your feelings during the situation when you heard that paper charts would be replaced by Electronic Health Records. 2. Tell me about your experience with newly implemented Electronic Health Records in your ophthalmology centre. 3. Electronic Health Records has been implemented in your centre for over 2 years, do you think the system has increased the performance level of staff? Explain your answer. 4. Compare the work experience in paper charts based system as against working in Electronic Health Records based system. Kindly provide examples to clarify your answer. 5. Do you have any suggestion regarding work practice through Electronic Health Records or regarding the improvement of performance in by optimizing the applications of Electronic Health Records? Modern hospital and health centers are not only trying to decrease the complexities in providing services to patient but also trying to integrate system components in order to optimize the healthcare process (Whittle and Hewison 21.3; 297-306). The ophthalmology centre was also implemented the Electronic Health Records in order to decrease complexities regarding the patient tracking and data management while it was the staff who were needed to respond to respond in positive fashion regarding the implementation of Electronic Health Records by replacing traditional paper charts based systems. Question Specifications Demographic questions cannot be selected in this section because demographic questions were created in order to describe the nature of respondents and it is not possible to associate any kind of assumptions with demographic questions. In such context, all the five questions in the questionnaire can be specified in the following manner; Question Basic Assumption Relationship with Research Problem Expectation 1. Tell me about your feelings during the situation when you heard that paper charts would be replaced by Electronic Health Records. Staff would be nervous and oppose the change The question has relationship with social cognitive aspect of the transition from paper charts to Electronic Health Records (EHR). Shed light on psychological aspect of staff regarding the change process. 2. Tell me about your experience with newly implemented Electronic Health Records in your ophthalmology centre. Some staff might find EHR as user friendly application while other may think it has increased difficulty Experience evaluation of EHR from employee perspective Shed light on diversity in opinion among staff regarding EHR. 3. Electronic Health Records has been implemented in your centre for over 2 years, do you think the system has increased the performance level of staff? Explain your answer. Some people might appreciate the EHR while other may criticize the performance of EHR Performance evaluation of EHR from employee perspective Shed light on diversity in opinion among staff regarding performance of EHR. 4. Compare the work experience in paper charts based system as against working in Electronic Health Records based system. Kindly provide examples to clarify your answer. Some people might like charts based system while other may like EHR Comparison between charts based system and EHR from staff perspective Shed light on diversity in opinion among staff regarding comparison between charts based system and EHR. 5. Do you have any suggestion regarding work practice through Electronic Health Records or regarding the improvement of performance in by optimizing the applications of Electronic Health Records Suggestion regarding the rectification of error in current EHR system. It will shed light on scope of the research problem Some valuable suggestion regarding improvement of efficiency of EHR may be collected. Ethical Consideration Researchers need to follow certain ethical rules while conducting survey or interview in order to collect primary data (Saunders, Lewis and Adrian 163-170). The researcher has also followed these ethical norms while conducting the interview such as, 1- purpose of the research was communicated to each of the respondents, 2- each respondent was assured that their identity or the name of the ophthalmology centre would not be revealed and 3- each respondent was also assured that result of the research would only be used for academic purposes. Each of the respondents signed the ethical form after understanding all the clauses and no animal was hurt during the interview process. Conclusion The researcher would create a separate database for responses of respondents which would be in analysis section. Research methodology has created the root map for conducting the data analysis and researcher also got the idea about important components which can significantly impact the outcome of the research. . Works Cited Chen, Chung H., and Chao Y. Chou. Economic design of continuous sampling plan under linear inspection cost. Journal of Applied Statistics 29.7 (2002): 1003-9. Duarte, Belmiro P. M., and Pedro M. Saraiva. An optimization-based approach for designing attribute acceptance sampling plans. International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management 25.8 (2008): 824-841. Print. Longo, Francesco. Implementing managerial innovations in primary care: Can we rank change drivers in complex adaptive organizations? Health Care Management Review 32.3 (2007): 213-25. Print. Mukhopadhyay, Amrita. Emotional labour in transcending the feeling rules of the Kesarwani community. International Journal of Work Organisation and Emotion 5.1 (2012): 41-55. Print. Roslender, Robin. Critical theory. London: Spiramus Press, 2006. Print. Saunders, Mark, Philip Lewis, and Adrian Thornhil. Research methods for business students. 3rd ed. New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2009. Print. Shields, John. Managing employee performance and reward. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Print. Tinker, Tony. The withering criticism: A review of professional foucauldian, ethnographic, and epistemic studies in accounting. Accounting, Auditing, and Accountability Journal 18.1 (2005): 100-35. Print. Whiddett, Richard, Inga Hunter, Judith Engelbrecht, and Jocelyn Handy. Patients’ attitudes towards sharing their health Information. International Journal of Medical Informatics 75 (2006): 530—541. Print. Whittle, Claire, and Alistair Hewison. Integrated care pathways: pathways to change in health care. Journal of Health Organization and Management 21.3 (2007): 297-306. Read More