Stanford Hospital & Clinics - Essay Example

Health Information Systems SLP SLP I have selected 'Stanford Hospital & Clinics' for the purpose of this study, because a friend of mine who has been working for this hospital is quite happy with the working environment and the support being provided to the employees and quality care being extended to the patients. The hospital group has been working with a mission to, 'To Care; To Educate and To Discover'. My friend has told me that the staff is told in no uncertain terms that in order to express its commitment to excellence, the hospital must come out with 'Excellent Quality, Excellent Service and Excellent Financial Strength to Support Our Mission'. Located at the northern end of the Stanford University campus in Palo Alto, California, Stanford Hospital & Clinics has been serving the humanity since the beginning of the 20th Century when Cooper Medical College was adopted as Stanford University's School of Medicine. As of now, the hospital provides advanced patient care and treatment related to a number of complex disorders related to Cardiac, Cancer, Neurosciences, Surgery, Organ transplants etc. The quality services being provided include basic primary care to advanced treatment and procedures. Working in close association with the Stanford University School of Medicine the hospital services are not just limited to practitioners but the medical student community too gets to know the practical aspects of medical treatment. This helps them in building a strong foundation for becoming good medical professionals. The hospital has more than 1900 medical staff together with 85o Nursing staff to take care of the customers. Thanks to the continuous emphasis on quality care, Stanford Hospital & Clinics has been ranked 16 amongst America's Best Hospitals in a study carried out by U.S. News & World Report in the year 2008. SLP2 MS office applications have made a deep impact on the way we function in our offices or deal with official matters. Stanford Hospital & Clinics is certainly no exception. Always on the lookout for improvement in services, the hospital group has computerised all the records of patients with computer terminals in each room. Different types of MS office applications are used by the hospital group depending upon the kind of usage. The official wings in the hospital are mainly divided in two groups; The HR or Personnel Department: This department is mainly entrusted with maintaining the records of the staff and recruitments. Different types of MS office applications are used in this department. For example MS Word is primarily used on all computers for writing memos, reports, press releases, circulars, notices, publicity materials etc. MS Excess is used to maintain the database of the medical and support staff. This is a very useful tool for maintain the seniority and service records of an individual working for the Hospital. While preparing records of monthly salaries and other remunerations, MS Excel is the best tool. Calculating the salaries, adding perks, deducting taxes etc. require lot of calculations. If done manually, such calculations prove very cumbersome for the clerical staff and there are more chances of mistakes. But with the help of MS Excel the process become quite easy and there are far less chances of error. It also results in saving lot of man-hours and results in better efficiency for the staff. At times, doctors or some of the public relation professionals need to go out and attend some conferences. Therefore, they are in need of some facts and figures about the Stanford Hospital. The MS PowerPoint helps in preparing slides for such presentation. Similarly, the Departmental Head can also prepare his/her lecture for the students on the MS PowerPoint. This way the process of communication becomes quite effective and interactive and the points are well taken by the intended audience. The Record Keeping of Patients: The process of record keeping is very crucial for the reputation of the hospital. Such record keeping not only helps in better care for the patient, but it also helps in preparing an intelligent and educative database for the research and developmental activities at the hospital. Some of the applications of MS office in the Record Keeping department includes; Maintaining the record of patients coming to hospital, their age profile etc. using MS Excel Maintaining daily records of the treatment offered and the medication administered to the patient. This is done with the help of MS Excess as well as MS Excel under different circumstances and convenience of the user. Maintaining the types of complications being experienced by the patient and the effect of medication. This will help in taking a feedback on the type of care being provided and if required due corrective steps can be taken well in time. Maintaining a truthful record also helps in preparing for any adverse circumstances as well. For example, in the event of an unfortunate incident with the patient, the friends and family of the patient might feel dissatisfied, which in turn might lead to legal battles or otherwise. But if the Hospital is ready with the daily records and the efforts being done by the doctors, it will help in facing the charges. As for the benefit to using the MS Office applications outside of our current or potential work environment, it is indeed worth mentioning that such applications have now become an integral part of our daily life. Today we are living in an era, which is termed as IT era and it is characterized by the increasing use of computer and internet. Therefore, even when I am sitting at home and accessing the net; I might like to send across my bio-data for a better opening in some other organization. This will involve the use of MS Word. I can spruce up my CV at home and send across to another organization. Similarly, we often require to write lengthy emails. Writing such emails in the MS word page and then attaching the page/s with the mail helps in making the communication more effective and legible. In addition quite often we need to write some papers relating to our area of work for presenting during official meetings, discussions or conferences. Such papers can easily be written with the help of MS Word. In addition while preparing comparative statements on the monthly targets, resources, staff turnover, revenues etc. the MS Excel helps in preparing comparative statements, bar charts, pie charts, projections etc. This helps in making things very concise and clear. With the demise of manual typewriters, MS word has certainly become a handy tool for undertaking the writing jobs. There are instances when we need to look up for spelling mistakes or synonyms etc. The inbuilt dictionary feature in MS word helps in correcting the mistakes and making our document a compact one. SLP 3 MS Excel is indeed a very handy tool for the Hospital. With a large number of patients coming to the hospital daily, in different departments for specialized treatments, the MS Excel records need to be updated frequently. Similarly there are the first timers trying to seek relief for their pain and agony, whose record too need to be maintained and updated quite frequently. The spreadsheet is structured in a manner reflective of complete details of the patient. For example, some of the fields which are sought by the registration office are; i. Name ii. Social Security Number iii. Nationality iv. Age v. Address vi. Contact telephone numbers vii. Contact person, in case of emergency viii. Insurance card no. and other details In addition, the record office also maintains the record of previous treatments undertaken by the patient and the name/s of the doctors concerned. This medical history helps in understanding the gravity of the situation and initiating proper treatment. Once these details are registered, the registration counter refers the patient to the appropriate department or doctor. It is worthwhile here to mention that the records kept in MS Excel can easily be transported to MS Excess for historical record keeping purposes. Therefore, MS Office tools have made things quite easy to handle in an office. Once these databases are connected to LAN or intranet, anybody with access rights can see the records. While on the one hand this helps in making comparisons etc. the administrator can see all types of activities and profile of all patients at just one place. At the same time, the administrator can monitor the kind of services being extended to the patients. This not only helps in quality control checks, but it also helps in inventory management and keeping an eye on supplies and usages. While maintaining the record of the patient, the medication offered to him/ her forms very crucial. This record can also be monitored by the departmental heads or the administrator. Today we are in the midst of the process of globalization and liberalization, which is mainly characterized by intense competition. Such a competition is quite prominent in services industries. Healthcare services therefore require to be updated on a regular basis in such a manner that besides maintaining quality standards, the Hospital needs to maintain an aggressive pricing strategy. Stanford Hospital and Clinics has been following this aggressive path for quite a while. Analyzing the patient records, maintained with the help of MS Excel, also helps in judging the inflow of patients, the satisfaction levels etc. SLP 4 The centralized registration system of patients is one of the most comprehensive one's with all the details of the incoming patient. At Stanford Hospital the admitting hours are from 5:00am until 9:30pm, Monday through Friday and 7:00 am to 9:30 pm Saturday and Sunday. Some of the details which could be helpful for patient care are; S No Name of the Patient Age of the Patient Nationality Address Contact Telephone No Medicare/Medi-cal/Insurance details Previous doctor's details This record can be prepared in MS Excess or MS Excel. But in order to make the process of entering records smooth and less time taking, these entries are done in MS Excess at the registration counter. On the basis of the registration an automated registration number is generated for the patient. This registration number becomes the index key for the patient. In addition the name of the person can also be used as an indexing key, because at times during some emergency like situations, the person while arriving in the hospital or when being brought to the hospital, might not remember the registration number. Though entering all these data and records is not difficult, but there are some limitations and constraints to this process. Some such limitations are; i. The person may not remember his/ her social security number or insurance id ii. Due to heavy rush at the registration counter, the person entrusted with the registration process might find it difficult to enter all the details. So at times, some key details are entered during the registration process, leaving the rest to be completed later. iii. Though, all these details can be handed out in a paper format to the patients, but due to old age or not being able to read and write properly, some patients might find it difficult to enter the info on their own. Similarly, the legibility of the handwriting will also become a problem for the registration clerk to enter all info truthfully. iv. Due to large amount of data being handled by the computer, at times the computer too plays tricks and shows signs of fatigue, thus resulting in undue delay in the registration process. With the help of these details, the Stanford Hospital also prepares the Patient Medication List, which in turn also helps the patient to keep track of all the medications that the patient is taking. This helps not only in tracking the medical record, but it also helps the patient in leading a disciplined lifestyle, so that the person is able to lead a healthy life for the rest of the life and there is no recurrence of the disease. SLP 5 Protecting the patient information is of vital Importance, both for the patient/s as well for the hospital because; i. Protecting the information helps in bringing a sense of confidence amongst the patients and they are able to share all required details with the hospital. This forms the cornerstone towards establishing the reputation of the hospital as a reliable and responsible one. ii. If going into wrong hands, the patient information might be misused by unscrupulous elements to harm the interests of the patient. iii. Protecting the information from being lost or damaged also helps the hospital authorities to prepare a reliable and effective healthcare plan for the patient for years together. Whenever the patient returns to the hospital, his/her older records can be traced to find more info about the patient in minimum possible time. In fact in today's competitive times, ensuring foolproof security to the data is considered a quality parameter. Quality is not easy to define because it means different things to different people under different sets of circumstances. For a hospital a patient happens to be the customer of services. It is the customer receiving the services who decides whether or not the promised quality of goods or services are being provided by the hospital, regardless of what the organization thinks of itself. Therefore, quality standards must be seen as being adhered to by the hospital. The hospital and healthcare sector has become quite competitive as well. And Stanford knows it fully well, that if the quality standards are compromised that the competitors will try all possible means to exploit it. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) also defines a number of offenses relating to healthcare and calls upon hospital and healthcare agencies to guard the interest of the patient, failing which some civil and criminal penalties are also defined by HIPAA, depending the nature of offense. In fact HIPAA has proved to be quite helpful in controlling frauds and abuse within the healthcare system. The Privacy Rule1 provides federal protections for personal health information held by covered entities and gives patients an array of rights with respect to that information. At the same time, the Privacy Rule is balanced so that it permits the disclosure of personal health information needed for patient care and other important purposes. In addition, the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 also helps in safeguarding the interests of the patient. At Stanford also, there are strict guidelines regarding the access and usage of patient information. Only limited few are provided the access rights to the full database. Only that department where the patient is being referred or where his/her diagnostic activities are taking place is allowed to go through the patient records. This act2 establishes a voluntary reporting system to enhance the data available to assess and resolve patient safety and health care quality issues. Read More