CASE STUDY
You are an Information Systems manager of a medical consulting company in Sydney, Australia. Your client, Greenland Health Group in Malaysia, has asked you to re-develop a medical management system in their medical department. In Greenland medical department, there are many small integrated healthcare systems, which include several hospitals, a network of physicians and specialists, and outpatient clinics with high volume of patients. The Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of Greenland Health Group has asked you to improve the organization’s medical management systems, such as disease management and case management systems, and track the outcomes and costs of care to help manage patients with chronic diseases, such as heart diseases, diabetics and kidney diseases.
Greenland Health Group currently has a case management system and a disease management system to record patients with chronic diseases. For the case management system, it is used for recording patients’ medical consultation history such as medical appointment with doctors and the follow up care after treatment by regular telephone conferences between patients and health providers. In addition, patients required for lab tests and prescriptions at hospitals are also recorded. For the disease management system, it is used to update various types of illness or chronic diseases such as heart or kidney diseases, diabetics, lung disease etc.
A serious problem in the case management and disease management is data and information inconsistency. Doctors find it difficult to conduct a diagnosis with patients accurately due to two systems showing two kinds of patient’s medical information, which is very confusing. In the case management system, patients see one doctor or more and all both systems have patients’ home addresses, email addresses, and telephone numbers however, they are inconsistent. The other serious problem is the systems fail to notify patients to follow up medical treatments. Doctors have no idea whether the patient has completed the treatment successfully as in the case management system there is no update on the section of treatment completed. The restrictive access of patient files by doctors on these systems disadvantages to them. These systems can only be accessed by case managers and disease managers in a database created by the Information Systems department.
The other constraint on environment is that hospitals are using a different system which is called the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) System. The purpose of an EMR system is to record patients admitted to hospitals. This system is not in the doctor offices. Though the Information Systems department provides an inventory report that lists of patients with chronic diseases who have been seen in the emergency room and who have been hospitalized, there has been a big complaint from the hospital Ward section that no vacancy beds in the hospital
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can be made available especially on Saturday and Sunday. Additionally, the finance department has troubled to tally their claim reports because of different sources such as the providers, doctor offices, hospitals, lab and pharmacies that are not within the integrated healthcare system.
You would like to develop a new system to track and manage the information and data that is available and identify any other useful sources of data to help manage patients with chronic diseases. You are interested in how doctor offices, hospitals, health plans, and pharmacies can also participate in this tracking system, in order to improve medical management strategies, communication, continuity of care, and reduce costs for these patients. The CMO has requested the development and tracking of performance indicators to help track progress toward goals and monitor the outcomes of patients with chronic diseases. Before you submit a MIS proposal with recommendations for program improvements, an action plan is needed. The first step you must do is to conduct an analysis of current systems behaviour and identify data and information for the new integrated system. You also want to know who needs to be involved in the process of implementing the medical health system.
Questions
1.Create TWO bad behavior of Case and Disease Management systems scenarios and explain each in detail? (4 marks)
2.Assuming you are going to develop a new tracking system, draw and explain a rich picture showing stakeholders who will be affected by the new tracking system (2 marks).
3.Justify your stakeholder analysis matrix for finding benefit and value on the new tracking system (2 marks)
4.Construct a swim lane diagram for the new tracking system. (2 marks)
5.What possible Information System challenges are they for developing the tracking system for doctors and hospital staff? For each, explain how these challenges can be overcome. (4 marks)
6.Discuss the kind of Information System reports hospital staff and doctors need from the new tracking system. (2 marks)
7.How can case managers and disease managers improve their collaboration and communication with doctors and health providers to ensure the health service is well utilized and the health cost and quality of care is sustainable? (3 marks)
8.Draw and explain a network type and its components needed to develop the new tracking system? (2 marks)
9.How can the patient communication be improved with a new tracking system? For example, how can you reach patients who do not have valid addresses or telephone contact information? (2 marks)
10.Correct report format and appropriate Harvard referencing style (2 marks)