Abstract
Grounded on the “Oncology South” and “Oncology North” case studies, the following assignment identifies and evaluates the demands of an EHR in the clinical context of the cases to determine a feasible solution to the EHR problem.
The User-Related Issues Established in the EHR
Oncology North and Oncology South are owned by Universal Health. The user issues derive from substantial variances in how the two sites function as a result of Cancer South’s recent acquisition and Oncology North’s connection with the nationwide oncology care model. To make matters worse, Oncology North’s EHR, Chrystal, was chosen as the model for converting Oncology South’s EHR to be in line with the rest of the corporation. The management of oncology patients is complicated, and Oncology South was concerned about the EHR transition, as well as developments that may influence its business model.
The Gaps Resulting from the Identified Problems
Chrystal’s gap analysis revealed that Universal Health’s oncology design did not correspond with its recommendations for cancer specialty in various sections of the EHR. As a consequence, a dedicated team was formed to manage the suggestions from the Chrystal oncology gap study methodically. Although there were some general recommendations for Universal Health’s general EHR construction, there were also particular suggestions for Chrystal’s cancer platform design. A few of the added emphasis was the on previous financial gaps/authorization, the workflow/functionality of all cancer clinicians/providers, as well as the cancer navigators without oncology function inside Chrystal.
Some Opportunities to Expanding or Developing the EHR Capabilities
Aligning Oncology South’s concept with the rest of the enterprise is one of the options for growing or strengthening EHR functionality. The prospects for improving EHR skills demanded developing a specialized team, which included professionals from Universal Health’s health informatics, Chrystal’s oncological orientation and IT experts, and Cancer North and South’s oncology explorers. The team would describe the process, evaluating end-user requirements, and make an end-design proposal to the Universal Health IT building team. Certainly, this is predicated on Eastwood’s (2013) suggestion that both contexts consider technology that can tackle how social, community and environmental health issues impact patient health.
Recommended Developments to Improve Clinical Workflow
Such developments as highlighting the EHR value to healthcare personnel might enhance clinical workflow. This will allow staff to adopt it and put it to good use. As a result, patient outcomes and provision of services would be enhanced. EHR optimization in healthcare settings might help enhance EHR. This entails attending to the patient’s requirements while also concentrating on clinical efficiency and productivity (Pandhi et al., 2014). The efficient arrangement of health information exchange-shared data is critical to its effective usage (Strauss, et al., 2015). Consistent practice of operating the system may potentially result in the system’s successful functionality.
A User-Focused Solution to the EHR Problem
Creating simple and user-friendly solutions for physicians to utilize would concentrate on delivering services and enhancing clinical outcomes. Furthermore, better coordination between Oncology North and South would aid in the transmission of patient information dissemination with all involved parties, saving conversion time (Sittig & Singh, 2015). Additionally, establishing specialized support personnel would help with patient transfers, making the system more user-friendly (Gecomo et al., 2020). More significantly, to solve the issues in the case study, the Think Aloud (TA) evaluation approach, which focuses on detecting usability flaws in health data systems that support healthcare institutions and users, would be required (Khajouei & Farahani, 2020). Applying TA would give a deep understanding of the issues that arise throughout the user-system interface by recognizing issues that users encounter during their operations.
References
Eastwood, B. (2013). 12 ways to improve the healthcare user experience. CIO. Web.
Gecomo, J. (2020). Implementation of an evidence-based electronic health record (EHR) downtime readiness and recovery plan. On-Line Journal of Nursing Informatics, 24(1).
Khajouei, R., & Farahani, F. (2020). A combination of two methods for evaluating the usability of a hospital information system. BMC medical informatics and decision making, 20(1), 1-10.
Pandhi, N., Yang, W., Karp, Z., Young, A., Beasley, J. W., Kraft, S., & Carayon, P. (2014). Approaches and challenges to optimizing primary care teams’ electronic health record usage. Journal of Innovation in Health Informatics, 21(3), 142-151.
Sittig, D. F., & Singh, H. (Eds.). (2015). SAFER electronic health records: safety assurance factors for EHR resilience. CRC Press.
Strauss, A. T., Martinez, D. A., Garcia-Arce, A., Taylor, S., Mateja, C., Fabri, P. J., & Zayas-Castro, J. L. (2015). A user needs assessment to inform health information exchange design and implementation. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 15(1).