Running head: PLANNING AND EMR IMPLEMETATION

Planning an EMR Implementation Submitted by SHRUTI CHOLA Coleman University

BACKGROUND:

PLANNING AN EMR IMPLEMENTATION

The Leonard Williams Medical Center (LWMC) is a 240-bed, community acute care hospital operating in upstate New York. It has its own board whom nominates for members and officers; reviews and approves capital and operating budgets; and responses for governing the day- to- day operations. Leonard Williams Medical center serves almost 215,000 clients and it has 5 competitor hospitals around its region. Recent fiscal year, LWMC has $40 million in investments and has a long- term debt to equity ratio of 25 present. LWMC was the first hospital in its region to have clinical information system and it received several industry recognitions for its effective IT efforts. Recently, the committee approved the acquisition and implementation of a CPOE system and the system need to assess the whole organizational strategies, the efforts of the other hospitals, and the vendor offering, and its members and officers attitude and reflection regarding to the new implementation of IT system. The physicians were anxious to acquire an electronic medical record system because of the experience from a rival physician group happened 2 years ago. The rival physician group purchased its own an electronic record system spend about $300,000 and encountered serious difficulties with implementation and has deinstalled the system. The physician group decided to proceed on an independent path because they ignored the CIOs technical and integration advice and requirements during their EMR they look at vendor offerings. The EMR system is expensive and it may cause difficulties with implementation. So it is better to proceed not connect to medical centers IT plans to minimize the effect to the whole organization.

PLANNING AN EMR IMPLEMENTATION

Strategic planning process of an organization should have an outline that a high resembles. This outlines the leadership can see IT investments needed to advance each of LWMCs and WMCs organizations strategies to invest For example, the goal of improving the quality of patient care may lead the organization to invest in databases to measure and report quality, CPOE and EMR system. In this particular case the goal of improving the quality of patient care may lead the organizational System implementation requires a high degree of support from the senior executive team and needs to be viewed as an organizational priority. Sufficiently staff, time, and resources must be developed to the project. Individuals involved in rolling out the new system should have the resources available to them that will ensure a smooth transition. The time and resources needed to implement a new health care information system can vary considerably based on the scope of the project, the needs and complexity of the organizational, the number of applications being installed, and the number of the groups involved. There are, however, some fundamental activities that should occur during any system implementation regardless of its size or scope. Failing to appropriately plan for and manage these activities can lead to cost overruns, dissatisfied users, project delays, and even system damage as evidenced in the case of WMCs decision to implement EMR. In todays environment, where capital is scarce and resources are limited, health care organizations cannot afford to mismanage implementation projects of this magnitude and importance. Estimating the use of CPOE systems is almost as difficult as assessing the use of EMR systems. A CPOE system is typically an integral part of a comprehensive clinical

PLANNING AN EMR IMPLEMENTATION information system or EMR system and not a standalone application.

Before taking an initiation in implementing CPOE & EMR both LWMC and WMC should perform scope of analysis which involves the management needs, establish goals and objectives for the systems based on the needs. Conduct literature review on EMR & CPOE products and the market resources for those products. Investigate top players for the systems. Visit health care organizations using similar vendors. Attend vendor demonstrations. It is not necessary to acquire an EMR system from the same vendor who provides CPOE. Selection of vendors involves the strategies like Evaluation of vendor proposals, developing evaluation criteria, conducting vendor demonstration, making visits and check references, preparing vendor analysis, performing cost-benefit analysis.

CONCLUSION: Information Technology can be very effective in supporting an organizations effort to

PLANNING AN EMR IMPLEMENTATION

improve its competitive position. This support generally occurs when IT is employed to control core organizational processes, support the collection of critical data, customize or differentiate products a services, and transform core characteristics and capabilities, Information Technology investments serve to advance organizational performance. These investments should enable the organization to reduce costs, improve service, enhance the quality care, and in general, achieve its strategic objectives. WMCS decision to invest in EMR should be the clear result of goal of improving the effectiveness of patient care. LWMCs decision to implement a Computerized Provider Order Entry (CPOE) system should also reflect an organization strategy of improving patient care. Development of well-aligned IT strategies has been notoriously difficult, as it appears to be no reason to expect that crafting this alignment will be significantly easier over time. IT applied by intelligent and experienced leadership in the pursuit of wellconceived strategies and plans, or inferior products and services.