Good Report About Ehr System Design

The Electronic Health Record (EHR) system contributes significantly to the management of health records. Indeed, this is a report of the management team in charge of the design, development, and the implementation of the new EHR system in San Bernardino Ambulance services. The primary goal of our group is to realize the successful implementation of phase four of the Software Development Life Cycle.

Objective one: Establishment of the time frame

Measures to ensure timely implementation of the project
Establishing a time frame is quite essential in this project. Indeed, the eventual implementation of the system will bring various benefits to the San Bernardino County Ambulance services. For instance, the EHR will bring significant reduction to the documentation time. According to a study by Poissant et al., institutions that take a long time to implement the EHR system, tend to have longer documentation time compared to those that had a shorter period between implementation and evaluation. (Poissant et al., 2005). The study aimed to examine the impact of EHRs on the documentation time of nurses and physicians. One measure of ensuring timely implementation is setting and strictly monitoring the time frame.

Attainment of cost effectiveness of the process

Indeed, one of the ways we can achieve cost effectiveness is by matching technological approach to tasks. Again, staging information into medical practice can help in obtaining the initial benefits of the system (Stead 2007). In addition, one of the ways we can ensure cost-effectiveness is to train our staff on software informatics. Indeed, this would mean that we hold several seminars whose aim is to provide vital information on mode of operation and troubleshooting of the software system. Moreover, another way of achieving cost benefits is conducting market research on the EHR system vendors and providers. Indeed, a comparison of prices and quality of the system soft wares from various suppliers will enable the team to settle for the best offer (Ambinder, 2005).

Objective Two: Establishing the usability of the modules and application system

Enhancement of the usability of the EHR system is a critical consideration for the management team. The EHR should not jeopardize interoperability in any way. Thus, we opted to ensure that the development and maintenance of the system are coordinated to avoid the ‘rank growth’ of the archetypes (Garde et al. 2007). The team aims to link the new EHR system securely via internet. Moreover, the team will integrate the system seamlessly with the medical information to educate the patients, as well as the providers (Ambinder, 2005).
The practical usability of the system across the globe is an important consideration for the team. To enhance the usability of the system, we will adopt programs designed to handle certain operations. Indeed, these include verification and completion of insurance provider forms, billing and electronic claims (Ambinder, 2005). Certainly, EHRs will form part of the standardized databases in the institution. Therefore, as the management team, we will implement the use of these soft wares in phases (Ambinder, 2005). In addition, we would like to enforce interconnections of the EHR system within the various departments. Accordingly, the computer terminals will be linked from the office to the other sections. Precisely, these are the examination room, clinic workstation, hospital bedside, and ambulance operations room. Thus, these electronic links will enhance collaborative and well-coordinated approaches among the caregivers. Additionally, they will facilitate the tracking of the quality of care activities. Moreover, these linkages will provide points of assistance for the module users since they will include the module operations experts within the San Bernardino Ambulance Services (Ambinder, 2005).

Objective Three: Accessibility and management of the information flow in the EHR system

We saw it necessary to come up with policies, which safeguard the confidentiality of patient information. Thus, this required us to design a framework, which governs the transfer and storage of patient information. One of the components we opted for in the EHR is the Personal Health Records (PHR). Precisely, PHR were thought to be crucial in ensuring the confidentiality of patient records. Ideally, the PHR is a medical record maintained by the patient (Ambinder, 2005).
The establishment of actual interoperability of the San Bernardino County Ambulance information system is a crucial factor to the management team. According to Garde et al., the open EHR system approach helps to achieve the semantic and syntactic interoperability. The open EHR is an archetype approach to handling and managing the health records (Garde et al. 2007). Additionally, Comprehensive interoperability can take place through international coordination of the files across all health professions the development (Ambinder, 2005).
Therefore, monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of the new system is of primary concern to the management team. Conducting surveys of the institutions that have successfully implemented the new EHR can be of a significant contribution. Certainly, we would want to understand the challenges they faced and how to avoid them.

References

Ambinder, E. P. (2005). Electronic health records. Journal of Oncology Practice, 1(2), 57.
Garde, S., Knaup, P., Hovenga, E., & Heard, S. (2007). Towards semantic interoperability for electronic health records. Methods of information in medicine, (46), 332-43.
Poissant, L., Pereira, J., Tamblyn, R., & Kawasumi, Y. (2005). The impact of electronic health records on time efficiency of physicians and nurses: a systematic review. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 12(5), 505-516.
Stead, W. W. (2007). Rethinking electronic health records to better achieve quality and safety goals. Annu. Rev. Med., 58, 35-47.