Running head: PRODUCT/SERVICE DESCRIPTION 1

Product/Service Description

Ermias Habte

University of San Diego

PRODUCT/SERVICE DESCRIPTION 2

Heartland Health is a primary care practice that has a few issues that need improvement.

The more glaring one is the fact that Heartland Health is still using a lot of paperwork for

charting, billing, prescription and faxes. And this is obviously an issue where hard copies can be

misplaced and information being shared between locations and pharmacies can be misread. The

profile mentions that Heartland Health has been using paper charting medical records that are

stored in file cabinets behind the receptionists’ desk for the 20 years they have been in business.

This has been impacting billing because of having to locate billing charts that may not be in that

particular office all together. In addition to this the practice also uses fax machines. This is an

issue because according to the profile 8% of faxes sent do not reach their intended destinations

on the first try. This will cause many issues from communication between physicians and billing

issues as well. When using a fax machine, even though the fax machine may print out a page

confirming that the fax was sent successfully, there is no way to know if the recipient has

received it. It may be that no-one has noticed the fax on the recipient’s end or their fax machine

may simply be out of paper. A phone call is usually necessary to confirm that the fax was

received which also means more lost time in the process. Laboratory results are also faxed to

physicians. In the event that the physician hasn’t received the test results in a timely manner this

can be problematic for a patient that is waiting for diagnosis and treatment.

All these issues lead to one solution and that is Electronic Health Record keeping (EHR).

Electronic health record keeping will help a great deal with many of the issues mentioned above.

When hand writing a prescription, that leaves room for misinterpreting by the pharmacist, and

the physician mistakenly writing the wrong prescription all together. An Electronic Health

Record software has technology in place that will minimize the physician making a mistake. For

example, if a patient has allergies to a certain medication, the physician may not be aware of that
PRODUCT/SERVICE DESCRIPTION 3

and end up prescribing this same medication. When using a capable software, it will not allow

the physician to prescribe that medication because these allergies are prerecorded in the patient’s

EHR.

EHR will also eliminate the issue of faxes not being received by recipients. Once patient

test results are reported onto a patients’ EHR or a prescription is sent to a pharmacy

electronically, then wherever that patient visits, their EHR will be accessible on the computer.

Another issue I have witnessed with faxing patient records is that the faxed sheet has a tendency

to just sit on the fax machine for some time. This leaves the risk of visitors and unauthorized

staff members being able to access patient information. The implementation of EHR will

minimize a lot of these paper filled issues that heartland Health has and will improve patient

health care quality.

Competitive Analysis

To decide on whether to implement Electronic Health Record keeping and what software

to choose, we must first understand the customer. One of the challenges of EHR is getting the

patient to understand that it is beneficial to them. According to the profile we have a patient

demographic with an average age of 46. This is an age group that will be supportive to a

technology that will make their lives easier and help minimize mistakes being made by their

physicians. The main thing here will be educating the patients on EHR and ensuring them that

the practice has taken all necessary steps to secure patient information. As far as choosing an

EHR provider, below is a table showing the top two competitors Heartland Health should take a

look at.
PRODUCT/SERVICE DESCRIPTION 4

Provider comparison

Competitor A Competitor B

Cost Low High

Customer rating Medium High

Implementation support High High

Platforms Mac, Windows, Linux Mac, Windows Linux

Deployment Cloud only Cloud and onsite

Organizational Analysis

Heartland Health which is a primary care practice faces the usual cost assumptions a

relatively small practice faces. These cost assumptions are health care provider’s time costs,

technology costs, supplies and other indirect costs. The facility has 4 direct health care provides

which include a medical director, a physician and 2 nurse practitioners. These 4 providers time

totals an annual cost assumption of $690,000. Second is the technology expenses which includes

2 EKG machines, 2 copiers, 8 computers, 2 ultrasound machines and 2 scales totaling an annual

cost assumption of $33,000. Third is the cost of supplies which include paper, tongue

depressors, bathroom and exam room supplies totaling $25,000. And lastly are the indirect cost

assumptions. These include staff members indirectly involved in the health care of the patients.

These indirect providers include an information technologist, 1 biller, 2 receptionists and 4

medical assistants. In addition to these staff members, the facility also has a lease payment for 2

office suites and utilities which are also considered indirect cost assumptions for a grand total of

$358,000.
PRODUCT/SERVICE DESCRIPTION 5

When projecting if an Electronic Health Record system will be an implementation that

will benefit the organization, translating each cost assumption to Relative Value Units (RVUs)

will be essential. In essence, RVUs provide a number when measuring how much a given

resource consumes (i.e. if we are talking about a physician, it can be thought of as the

measurement of time and effort the physician is putting into patient care). For a 15-minute

patient visit at Heartland Health, the total RVU is $39.51. This includes the providers time RVU

of $24.65 which is the costliest of the components. And as far as the least costly component, that

would be supplies at just 89 cents.

The one-month expense budget shows mixed results with the provider’s time and indirect

costs showing a positive variance. In contrast, the technology and supply costs show a negative

variance. What is interesting is the components that include all staff members show a favorable

variance. Technology costs end up with a variance of negative $247 and supply costs show a

variance of negative $512 for the month.

With technology costs being $247 below zero, the main thing that could be done to go the

right direction is keeping up with maintenance with all equipment. When staff members are

diligent with necessary maintenance on equipment whether it’s computers or testing analyzers, it

can go a long way in minimizing service calls and longevity. For example, if the technologists

are keeping up with required and suggested maintenance, that will minimize analyzer

malfunction which will minimize service calls, and possibly having to replace equipment all

together. Neglecting these necessary tasks will also result in productivity loss due to an

equipment being inoperative.

PRODUCT/SERVICE DESCRIPTION 6

The other component that shows an even bigger variance of negative $512 is supply cost.

Unfortunately, this is generally due to staff members not being mindful of supply usage.

Whether it is stationary or medical equipment, health care providers can sometimes take for

granted that these little items can add up and drive up expenses. One example would be wasting

personal protective equipment (PPE). It is not uncommon to see a bunch of opened glove boxes

laying around all over the facility. Instead staff members should open a box and make an effort

to finish that box before opening another one. This might sound like a minor thing but when the

same mentality of conserving supplies is applied all over the facility, it can make a significant

difference.

What is interesting with the productivity report is the fact that Heartland South shows a

negative $55 and Heartland North shows a better but still negative $1 variance. This is

interesting being that the number of patients is divided evenly between both facilities. One

assumption that can be made is that Heartland South is not doing as good a job taking care of

their equipment and being mindful of wasting office and medical supplies.
PRODUCT/SERVICE DESCRIPTION 7

References

Baker, J. J., Baker, R. W., & Dworkin, N. R. (2018). Health care finance: basic tools for

nonfinancial managers. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Gasch, A., & Gasch, B. (2010). <i>Successfully choosing your emr : 15 crucial decisions</i>.

Retrieved from https://0-ebookcentral.proquest.com.sally.sandiego.edu

Heartland Health Profile. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://ole.sandiego.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-

1063344-dt-content-rid-4454544_1/courses/ENLC-553-

MASTER/M2/M2_Heartland_Health.pdf

Loria, G. (n.d.). Top Electronic Medical Records Software - 2017 Reviews. Retrieved from

https://www.softwareadvice.com/medical/electronic-medical-record-software-

comparison/