Social and Public Value in the Public Sector - Research Proposal Example

Title: Research Report Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Name and Code: University: Date of Submission: Information technology & Social/Public value in Public sector Introduction Change changes, if it does not change an organization, then the organization will change it. In public sector of many countries including Australia, there are local and global changes that have to be addressed, in public institutions and Governments that serves people. Often these challenges relate to the current changes in technology, information technology and globalization effects, that influence the patterns of how things are done, often in the public sector (Milner 2004, p.71-94). These broader issues can be broken down to issues such as, the invasion of social media such as facebook, twitter, my space and so on. Such media have affected how administration and management is carried out, in many countries (Khosrowpour 2005, p.74-93). In Australia for instance, the Government has been restrictive to allow the use of social media by the civil servants, due to its negative impacts such as, addiction to it that makes the economy loose much time and resources that would have been invested in value provision. However, such media have positive advantages too, that may make them relevant in performance of some functions. This paper discusses some of these issues with a reflection of Australia’s public sector. It further looks at the development of information technology and the resultant effects, that may contribute to the improvement of social and public value, in Australia’s and other public sectors (Guidebook for Recruiting 2010, p. 47-59). The research paper encompasses with it a structure made of introduction, which briefly outlines the concept to be discussed, the methodology that defines how this research was done, the literature review that discusses management issues in the public sector, and finally the conclusion that summarizes what the research paper has discussed. Methodology This research involved collection of data from a number of journals and books. The research was scheduled to take seven months, but instead it took a relatively lesser time of five months, due to the following supporting reasons. There was a dedication to find accurate data and to beat the deadline. Secondly, the journals that a good proportion of information was gathered from, was very descriptive making the work to be easily managed. Actually, it took 2 months for the information to be fully gathered from the sources. The rest of the time was used in carrying out the analysis of the data collected and fine tune it to meet the requirement of the paper. Therefore, interpretation and analysis of information took the longest time, as compared to the other part of collecting the information. This is attributed to the critical analysis that was required, so that to articulate the process with keenness that would minimize the errors of the research report. In other words, this was to increase the validity and reliability of the information that is reported in this paper. The process of collecting, analyzing and interpreting data to come with this conclusive research paper was not an easy process, but it was successful despite these challenges. The process of collection, analysis and reporting of the research findings, as outlined in the literature review, had the following challenges. First, accessing the information was not an easy task for a number of sources were used and discussed, were new in the market; and it took time to find more supporting factors in the discussion. For example, the discussion on ‘development of e-health records in Australia’, by the Government of Australia was a new concept that required deeper analysis, so as to come up with quality report about it (Blobel, Pharow & Nerlich 2008, p.47-58). This is a new concept related to information technology; therefore, supporting materials were limited. In addition to this, there was a need to put chronology to the development of the issues, which required more time for it to be satisfactorily done. Literature Review (a) e-health records in Australia. This concept involves getting the responsibility of storage of a patient’s health record, which often is kept on ‘health records book’ to having the patient himself/herself keep his/her health record through the electronic means. It is a move that takes technology into consideration, where a patient’s health information can be accessed by electronic move. It is a great advancement that a number of countries are on the verge of implementing, so as to improve the medical sector and particularly improve health standards of individuals. For increased accuracy that is found in this type of service as compared to the current practice where health records are manually kept. As much as this method is costly to the economies that would want to implement it, it comes with many benefits as well as it reduces the risks that were found in the manual system of keeping health records of individuals. The manual health records are subjected to risks, such as being tempered with easily, at times the health record book may be destroyed accidentally through human error, and the manual record can be forgotten by a travelling person, who may need urgent medical attention that may require the records to be verified. For instance, if one is involved in an accident and was suffering from ailments that called for specialized care at this moment and the records were not along with him/her. It becomes a great draw back that may cause the patient to suffer or get treatment that may cause more problems. Such challenges are solved by the e-health records, where ones health condition, progress and conditions are electronically stored. This first of all means that the records are accessible from wherever the patient is found. Secondly, the information has a backup that increases its reliability at the time of need (Anastasia & Moumtzoglou 2010, p.67-79). The third reason involves the aspect of the information being chronological therefore, increases the accuracy of interpretation by the medical professional, who is attending the patient. This is evidenced for the ‘e-health record’ is a single record that will be fed with information consistently, unlike the manual record that often is not consistent due to other factors. For instance, if a patient loses his medical record book, a new book used won’t reflect the previous records. E-health record information is built upon each other increasing its reliability in outlining the health status of an individual. In Australia, Department of Health and Ageing (DOHA), which is in charge of the implementation of national health policies and practices, came up with a blueprint of how personally controlled e-health records can be implemented among the Australian community. This was after the Government of Australia was convinced of the need to introduce the e-health records to its people as one of the ways to improve health care provision in Australia. The minister of Health and Ageing added weight to this move, by emphasizing that the blueprint was a representation of operation for the said health record, electronic system that would be soon implemented in Australia, so as to serve the general public. The general public was to benefit from the move, for it will improve the health care delivery through improving the accuracy of storage of health information, regarding an individual. The Australian government through the minister emphasized that the move will be voluntary, though many are advised to be involved so that they get the benefits that come with having enrolled your health information to electronic form (Wanna & Moray 2010). The move further meant the health record of an individual can be accessed by an individual at any computer, any iPhone and Blackberry. The e-health records will contain vital information, such as current medications that an individual is taking and the allergies or a particular allergy that an individual is affected with. In addition to this, the records would also contain relevant information that the individual would want stored, such as the emergency contacts, in the event that the individual is befell with an accident, incapacitation or is subjected to a condition where one is helpless. The e-health record is to be run as a ‘system of systems’, where the individual end users will be able to access their medical history, through the online portal of the e-health record site. The end users additionally will have the option to access the system, through the call centers that are Government operated. The e-health record system is planned to be operational from July 2012, therefore, those who have an interest in enrolling are requested to do so via online means; they can also register through contacting the ‘Medicare Australia’ or other recognized healthcare organizations, which will be licensed to perform the registration process. Those who find the two methods inconvenient are asked to send fill the application and send their information through the post (Chiarella & Staunton 2007, p. 45-57). The requirements that would be asked for include an individual’s full name, his/her healthcare identifier, one’s Medicare number or one’s veteran affairs numbers. All these information is accompanied by the information regarding ones address and sex. The details will go through a verification process, and if it is confirmed to be true then, one will be provided by the activation code. This code is vital for it is the one that will enable the individual to access his/her e-health record. When an individual logs on to the e-health portal, he/she can access the following information: (i) The general information, about the PCEHR system; (ii) The information about, how to register for the services and how to deactivate or re-activate a PCEHR (iii) The information on the nomination of new representatives for the PCEHR (iv) The user can also be able to view, download as well as print his/her clinical documents. (v) The user can be able to manage the access control, be able to trace those who have accessed their health data and how they did it. The e-health record system is very flexible to an extend that if a user makes up his mind not to be part of the scheme, then he/she is at liberty to quit using the services, through deactivating their record. This will mean that all the information that will be collected to that moment, would be stored, but it won’t be accessible to any individual or any health service provider. The users can later make up their mind and want to again use the service. This will be possible through reactivating their record, but the impact will be that there will be a gap. Another cause that will cause deactivation will be the death of the individual user. The records will only be used for legal or other approved reasons. The personal e-health record system will have a provider portal that is aimed at complementing the existing health record system. The provider portal will also give healthcare providers of the patient with the patient’s details. This would require the healthcare providers to have an identifier, as well as, they should provide their details to a directory. After fulfilling these two requirements, they would be able to connect to the PCEHR system through the clinical system; which is a provider portal. The healthcare providers, will access the patient’s record through logging on to the system with their token identifier. After they log in to the site, they can access the following services; online map, PCEHR search functions and the clinical documents of the patient. Australia’s Department of Health and ageing indicated that the vendor portal will be available only at the launch of the e-health record scheme. There will also be provision of write capabilities that will be exclusive to the authorized clinical software so as to keep the integrity of the data. The portals will be made available to all common and major browsers such as internet explorer, safari, Firefox and others. In addition to this, the portals will be provided to mobile operating systems that may include the Android and the iOS. The users, who will deactivate their e-health report from the system, will not have the opportunity to access any of the information that was stored in the e-health record. According to plan, the records cannot be replaced with the local health records or for normal clinical communications. This e-health record will be run by a system that will allow the consumer portals to access the system, so that they can be able to provide better features that include; the access of health literacy, as well as self managed care. The system that runs the e-health record will also have access control settings. Under this setting, the user will first be asked whether he/she wants the healthcare providers to see if they have a PCEHR or not. Additionally, the system will ask them their opinion if they want the provider engaged in their care to access their complete record, part of the record or they are opposed to this opinion. If the response to this question is positive, meaning the user has given way for the healthcare providers to access this information, then they will be compelled to set up a PIN, which the new organization scan use to log and be added to the list. The users have the option to request the system to notify them, when new organizations can be added to the system. An additional feature of e-health record scheme is that users can request that their clinical documents should not be loaded to the PCEHR, however, the responsibility of doing this is shouldered on the individual, who is supposed to inform his/her healthcare provider about this. The individual users have the liberty to choose the access levels for their records, through permitting any organization to access the information, limited organizations or no organization at all to access the organization. The limited organization will be factored into the system as subsets of the main list. System is set in a manner that only the organizations that the user has permitted to access the information will do so through the PACX key. If this PACX is forgotten due to any reason that may arise, this will compel the organization to ring the call centre’s, so as to be able to rest it back. There were claims that this feature will minimize the usefulness of the e-health record scheme, but greater concern was raised that without this feature being incorporated, the lack of privacy would make many people to avoid signing up due to privacy concerns. The e-health record system will add the necessary organization to the list in the event of an emergency. Additionally, any of the authorized users (those allowed to access individuals efforts) including the individuals, healthcare providers as well as their representatives may request the ‘audit trail’ summary. The documents that are found in the e-health record include the health summaries, event summaries, discharge summaries and consumer entered information. The other documents that may additionally be included include; medical specialist letters, referrals, prescription and dispensing details, pathology result reports, as well as, the diagnostic imaging reports, the Australia’s Medicare records and the advance care directives (Lawrence & Gitman 2008, p. 34-47). The Australian Government through the Department of Health care and Ageing, has outlined that the extent and scope by which the information would be supported, will be depended on the readiness of the healthcare sector to participate in the system. Corrections to documents will exclusively be done by the organizations that created them, as well as, there will be a multiple views aimed at making it easy for users to read the information. The main views of the system will include the Index view; which will give details on the record date, type of record, where it was recorded, the name of the author as well as the original link. The second link is the change history view; this is intended to help users to locate the new version uploaded documents. The third view is the consolidated view; which is used in the creation of health snap shots from clinical documents. The main challenges that face implementation of this project include: (i) Security and concerns; great work is required to convince the end users that the system is safe. (ii) Take-up, the program may need to provide incentives to attract users to get to the e-health record system. Additional funds may be required to drive adoption. (iii) There is a risk that some stakeholders may complicate the matters during adoption. (iv) The establishment and adoption of e-health record is a complex task, for it required integration of a number of systems and support that a number of stakeholders will need to adopt the system. (v) The issue of funding is a challenge based on the timeline of the project which is to begin in 2012, with the money to be provided having to be decided on by the 2012/2013 budget. (b) Information security related to the increased use of smart mobile phone devices to access the Internet (e.g. online banking) The authors(Guo, Wang & Zhu) outline that are many changes in the information technology developments; in relation to gadgets such as phones and this has brought in the greatest concern about ‘information security’. Kim and Kang (2009) detailed out the different attacks in the mobile environment (Guo, Wang & Zhu 2004). They comprised of wireless attacks, viruses and worms, overcharging attacks, the break in attacks, the Denial of service (DoS) attacks and theft/loss attacks. Kank (2010) went further and spilt this attacks into four broad categories which included the; mobile malignant codes threat, attacks aimed at the vulnerable points of mobile applications, the attacks aimed at mobile platforms and the ones that result from one accessing the networks without giving consideration to security (Kim & Kang 2009, p. 47-63). Later on Guo et al. (2004) went further to split these types of threats to attacks on smart phones and the security attacks through the smart phones. The attacks on smart phones were further broken into attacks through the internet and those that came through the infections in the synchronization process with PCs. There were also attacks that came from other smart phones this was made possible through the Bluetooth or UWB connections (Guo, Wang & Zhu 2004, P. 71-89). This is because the security of the smart phones is based on organic relations that take into account of the developer’s responsibility as well as the responsibilities of distributors and the users. In other words the smart phones are destined to be affected by the mobile OS application, networks and mobile platforms. The new software technology i.e.Web², which is used in smart phones, is accompanied by the new threats that can be assessed as follows: (i) The threats to Sensor-generated Data The information that is installed in smart phones is generated from the many sensors e.g. the proximity sensors, ambient light sensors, and 3-axis accelerometers. These sensors are vulnerable to threats through mobile applications and its OS. This is explained as follows; Threats exposed through mobile OS are based on the characteristics of the mobile OS. For instance, whereas Blackberry and iPhones have closed-type platforms, the others such as Android, Windows mobile and Symbian are made of open type platforms. The function that should blocks the untrusted data is lacking or limited particularly in iPhones which have the Jail Break which poses serious security problems (Kim & Kang 2009, P.56-72). The problem may include hackers may remotely control the mobile as well as the users current location can be traced through sensors such as GPS. Secondly the security threats through the mobile application can take the form of viruses, malignant codes and worms. It occurs when the user downloads infected files (Kim, Moon & Lee 2007). (ii) The threats Involving User-generated Data These are threats that originate from human relations that are in connection with SNS provision; which is one of the characteristics services of the Web². These threats are considered to be realized through access to the networks and mobile platforms. This is explained as follows; the threats brought by mobile application exist in the application store. For instance for the Google Android mobile, the registrations are not put in place making it impossible to block illegal applications (Lee, Choi, Kim, Cho & Jin 2009, p.72-87). For the iPhones incase they go through Jail Breaking, the applications that didn’t go through security checks can easily be downloaded and such action is dangerous for the security concerns of the user. In addition to this, the threats brought about by the networks may arise from the representative network provider companies such as 3G and WiFi (Lee, Park, Choi & Chung 2008, p.57-73). Analysis of Organizational Issues The use of social networking and social media in government (e.g. communication to citizens by Queensland Police) In Australia for instance the use of social media by private as well as Government staff has raised mixed reactions to its positive and negative impacts. It reported that most Australian’s spend a bulk of their time on social networking sites. It was revealed through an audit that the Department of Industry, Science and Research uses social media for an estimate of 400 hours per week. This is after the department restricted access to social sites like Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace. Questions about the employee’s productivity are still raised today due to the influence of these sites (Royal Institute of Public Administration 2005, p.54-71). For instance the Australia’s department of Treasury blocked Facebook, YouTube, and MySpace access but allowed my Twitter for work purposes. As much as social media has negativities employing right rules and embracing it would work better than just out rightly restricting its usage. In the Queensland police department; there is the operations support command that provides a range of specialized support services essential for effectiveness in management of the police. The Queensland police depatment is made up of seven key branches that include the Communications Branch, which often has to use social sites to communicate in addition to their call centers. We have the Disaster and Major Event Planning Branch, the Forensic Services Branch, which is in charge of provision of statewide scenes, DNA recording and such. The Legal Services Branch is another one, and finally the Policing Advancement Branch, which develops and maintains initiatives to improve policing in the Service. Measurement of impacts and business value of using social networking and social media in marketing or recruitment (e.g. is traditional financial measurement such as ROI appropriate? The use of social networking and social media sites for recruitment has had mixed reactions from the business executives, quoting both the pros and cons of the move. Using ROI to measure the benefit of using social media in recruitment may depict that the benefits far exceeds the cost however still managers are cautious to use such means. The compelling benefits of using social media may include; employer brand benefits, where use of such sites may increase the visibility of the organization, even if it doesn’t result in immediate applications. College impact; high usage of social sites among college students may increase the quality of college hire. Communications responsiveness; the use of social networks may result in higher response rates or more immediate responses from prospects and candidates. Most organizations are skeptical to use social media to recruit, so as to maintain ‘formal’ approach to recruitment exercise (Sullivan 2009 p.47-63). Conclusion In conclusion the paper has outlined a number of issues relating to, information technology changes that have affected the public sector and Australia’s public sector in general. The plan to implement the e-health record system has been widely discussed. The concept of use of smart phones and the threats that are accompanied by them has also been discussed in the literature review. Other issues that have been analyzed include the use of social networking and social media in Australia’s government e.g. through the Queensland policing department. The debate that relates to the need to or not to use social media in recruitment of organizations is also advanced with a conclusive remark, that it is prudent to allow its use through certain rules should be set first. References Anastasia, K. & Moumtzoglou, A 2010, E-Health Systems Quality and Reliability: Models and Standards, Idea Group Inc (IGI), London. Blobel, B, Pharow, P & Nerlich, M 2008, e-Health: combining health telematics, telemedicine, biomedical engineering, and bioinformatics to the edge. IOS Press, Sydney. Chiarella, M & Staunton, P 2007. Nursing and the Law. Elsevier Australia, Sydney. Guidebook for Recruiting 2010, Guidebook for recruiting, developing, and retaining transit managers for fixed-route bus and paratransit systems, Transportation Research Board, Chicago. Guo, C, Wang, HJ, & Zhu, W 2004. Smart-phone Attacks and Defenses. SAGE, San Diego. Kim, KY, & Kang, DH 2009, Smart-phone Security Solutions in Open-mobile Environment. KIISC Review, 19, 21-28. Kim, WJ, Moon, YJ, & Lee, SJ 2007, A Study on the Security Vulnerability and Countermeasure in the Mobile Web 2.0 Environments. Journal of Electrical Engineering and Information Science, 34, 18. Khosrowpour, M 2005, Challenges of information technology management in the 21st century, Idea Group Inc (IGI), Alaska. Lawrence, J & Gitman, LJ 2008. The Future of Business: The Essentials, Cengage Learning, London. Lee, HH, Choi, HC, Kim, JH, Cho, SR & Jin, SH 2009. A Study of Sharing Identity and Protect on SNS Environments. Korea Institute of Information Security and Cryptology, Seoul. Lee, HD, Park, NJ, Choi, DH & Chung, KI 2008. A Case Study on Mobile USN Technology and Weakness. Korea Institute of Information Security and Cryptology, Seoul. Milner, EM 2004, Managing information and knowledge in the public sector. Routledge, London. Sullivan, J 2009. The Many Benefits of Social Network Recruiting. Making a Compelling Business Case Review, 2:45-57, Nov 2, 2009. Wanna, J & Moray, W 2010, Public sector management in Australia: new challenges, new directions. Palgrave Macmillan Australia, Sydney. Read More