Introduction
The healthcare organization has requested vendors’ information on the products and services. This follows the fact-finding part of the system’s implementation and intends to help select the potential vendors. The request for proposal has been issued after the organization has screened potential vendors and gathered information. This paper examines whether the request for proposal expressly states the organization’s needs and the user, its strengths and weaknesses, and the best way to change the document.
Organization and User Needs
The organization in the request for proposal is the University of Akron, which is a major public institution for teaching and conducting research. The state of the University is defined by the level of education offered, the many students, and the many employees working within the institution (Cramer, 2011). The request for proposal expressly states the organization’s needs since it identifies the intention of the University to purchase a comprehensive Electronic Medical Records (EMR) system. Electronic medical record systems are involved in the recording of individual health-related information electronically (Menachemi & Collum, 2018). The system allows creation, gathering, management, and swift consultation among clinicians and healthcare staff of the organization.
The system is capable of facilitating the workflow and quality improvement of patient care and safety. Thus, EMR allows medical history provision, including the diagnoses, medications, plans for treatment, and other essential information for use by healthcare personnel. Thus, RFP indicating the need for an EMR means it acknowledges the current problem faced by the organization in keeping the bulk information concerning patients. The vendor would quickly identify that the organization’s problem involves strain on medical records and the need to supply a comprehensive system that can record medical information electronically.
Additionally, RFP expressly specifies the areas of the organization that is in most need of the EMR system. In this perspective, identifies three business units of the University of Akron that will most utilize the system depending on their business and the services currently offered, patients served, and the client base (Cramer, 2011). Therefore, the RPF is specific to the needs considering that the utilization of the EMR among the units is based on the need of each of them that is defined by the various factors affecting them.
The RFP proceeds to identify the specific areas that the EMR would serve as it elaborates on why the organization and the users who are the students need the system. An area of need RPF identifies is in the health services, which serve the purpose of assisting students in meeting their health concerns (Cramer, 2011). The current system has recorded information that dates back to as early as 2001. The fact that the current system cannot hold comprehensive information is evident that the provision of health services is not effective in quality, cost, culturally competent, and compassion.
Another area identified in RPF that recommends the organization’s need to acquire a comprehensive system is a nursing center for community health. Despite the many students who need mentoring by interdisciplinary faculty, only about 5000 can be served in a year using the current system (Cramer, 2011). The nursing center for community health performs a critical role in providing the community with services. Therefore, there is a need for a support system that would preserve comprehensive information about the community, including the vulnerable and underserved populations.
Another area with the organization that calls for the EMR according to RPF is speech, language pathology, and audiology. The client base of this organization serves all clients of all ages in NE Ohio and the community of the University of Akron (Cramer, 2011). The Audiology and Speech Center provides education and training for students, including persons with problems related to speech, language, and hearing, by offering diagnostic and treatment services. However, due to the extent area covered, the current system is limited, and there is a need to have a comprehensive EMR in place to reach all those in need of the services offered by the organization.
Similarly, RPF, through an overview of the proposed system, reveals the various needs that the system should satisfy for the organization. From the request, the organization needs a system that will offer electronic billing to facilitate the provision of Medicaid and Medicare. This means that the University needs a system that would process medical transactions and be used in teaching as a tool (Cramer, 2011). The system should come alongside the integrated billing package to address the issues raised by the organization with easiness.
The information reveals that students and teachers in the institution lack the best tool for teaching and learning. The organization needs a system that meets and even exceeds HIPPA and keeps the related requirements confident. The HIPPA has provided regulations that all health facilities must adhere to when dealing with the patients’ information (Cramer, 2011). It is, therefore, the desire of the organization, according to RFP, to have a system that observes these regulations.
Significantly, the organization is obligated to ensure that the patients’ data is protected from any authorized access and misuse. Thus, the institution requires an assurance of the security of the information preserved in its system about the patients. Thus, the system to be developed must have the ability to verify the user authorization and offer multiple security levels. Fundamentally, the organization is involved in the transmission of the patients’ data within different departments or health practitioners (Cramer, 2011). The security of this process should be assured hence the need to have a system that will meet or exceed the protocols involved to secure data.
The institution already has an existing IT infrastructure and requires a system that will integrate into this infrastructure and function optimally to serve the purpose as expected by the company. The organization has also experienced a complicated administration of processes and operations and needs a system to ease the administration subject (Cramer, 2011). The success of the organization depends on how well the organization can run, and the fact that this RPF identifies the need for easiness shows that it has well expressed the needs of the company and its users.
On the other hand, the University of Akron health organization receives many orders on medication and faces the problem of addressing the fulfillment. The organization, therefore, needs a system that provides the computerized order entry for the orders and ensures that all these orders are attended to by the responsible health personnel (Cramer, 2011). The need for the design, according to RPF, is to fulfill the medication orders in time to satisfy clients. Similarly, this RPF has indicated the issue related to the use of outdated devices that do not provide checks and maintenance of active medication lists. Thus, the needed system should perform most of the duties as indicated in the need list of the organization presented in the RPF.
Strengths and Weaknesses of RFP
Strengths
The selection of the vendor depends on how much they have been able to meet the needs of the organization requesting for proposal. This means that the RPF is a critical document and should be void of many shortcomings to facilitate the selection process. However, it is not true that any RPF would be perfect or imperfect (Ozanich & Shanholtzer, 2015). For instance, this RPF portrays both strengths and weaknesses in various ways. One area of strength of this RPF is that the document is comprehensive enough to express what the organization requires from the vendors. A detailed RPF such as this provides an opportunity for both parties to express their needs as far as the request is concerned and for the other part to show how competent they are in terms of facilitating the delivery of the request made (Cramer, 2011). It is possible that with this RPF, the selection or decline of any proposals is based on an informed decision rather than misinformation.
Another strength attached to this RPF is the specificity with which the organization defines the system in need. The advantage attached to this is that the proposal to be chosen only addresses the specific issues raised by the organization Spencer (2018). Similarly, it helps save the vendor waste of resources in proposing that will be descanted based on vagueness or failure to meet the requirements.
The strength of this RPF is based on the layout and outlook that makes anyone easily follow through to understand and meet the needs of every section with easiness (Ozanich & Shanholtzer, 2015). For instance, at the preliminary, RPF provides general information on what is required of any vendor and what they intend to facilitate. After this section, the document examines extensively the organization itself, and this also provides the vendor with the needed information to understand the organization and its need before determining the appropriate system that would be readily acceptable (Cramer, 2011). More details follow, including the specificity of the system required, goals and objectives expected, the timelines of the project delivery, and the resources involved, such as budget estimates. Similarly, this RPF presents various cases and exhibits that would be easier on the vendor’s side to follow up and understand what is needed. This is in addition to the fact that it is clear in its flow and gives easier time to the audience to express their position while well-informed.
The goals, approximated project schedule, and deliverables serve as another strength of the document Spencer (2018). Through these sections, vendors get information on the plans that the University has that requires them to purchase a new EMR system. The vendors also prepare on whether they will get chosen as they prepare for the submissions of the proposals and pose any relevant questions based on the presented information. Thus, both the University and the vendor will have an easier time conducting their transactions considering the availability of enough information on fundamental issues.
Weaknesses
On the other, this RPF presents some weaknesses that would be subject to either party to challenges. EMR systems are created to carry out specific duties concerning medical recording to ease the budget of storage. However, this document presents many detailed and tedious requirements that many vendors would not be able to meet in the short term. For instance, this RPF recommends an EMR system that integrates billing transactions. The limited number of vendors can meet these specifications, and the document may not be of much assistance to the audience Spencer, (2018). Similarly, this RPF is limited because it does not specify the resources the organization anticipates using in this project. For instance, vendors are expected to provide their proposals; thus, the selection is based on the bidding process, meaning that many of them may be left out because of proposing increased prices and extended periods of the project. So the openness of the RPF may disadvantage the majority of vendors.
Besides, the fact that this RFP is detailed and long means that it would require an extended time frame to prepare. Thus, it consumes much time and financial resources even when still at the initial stage of preparation. The more time it takes to have the RFP, the less appealing it becomes. It is true considering that even the vendors themselves would like to have a document with brief and precise content (Ozanich & Shanholtzer, 2015). However, in the case of this document, the increased level of content shows that it took more time to prepare and has therefore lost its appealing outlook. Vendors may not have enough time even to go through every detail presented in the document. In this case, it is likely to present varying information to different vendors, which results in an unfair bidding process. Similarly, unlike it is the case with other RFPs, this document presents vendors with the same information despite the variation in their capacity to deliver based on the requirements.
How to Change this Document
The RPF document has much strength concerning its physical layout and content presentation. It is a good document concerning the organization and the need for the project accomplishment to acquire a comprehensive EMR system Spencer (2018). However, the fact that the document shows some weaknesses means that it can be changed into a better one. For instance, this RPF only indicates the activities pre-implementation period. It should indicate the timeline within which the projects would be completed to guide the vendor on what they should expect once their proposals are selected. At the same time, the provided timelines on when the proposals should be submitted needs to be adjusted to give more time to the vendors to meet all the requirements indicated in the document.
Similarly, the document could be changed by including a cross-sectional RFP reviewers section. This is because the RFP process requires decision-makers to have more than the manager of the project and the business lead. Reviewers from IT, purchasing, finance, and legal need to be cross-functionally included to achieve a greater input into the contract, price, and financial issues to help make a purchase decision. Also, the change should include content organization and centralization, considering that many companies only copy and paste historic RFPs for the sake of completing the project. Thus, organization and centralization of content help avoid the hunt for information that may be crucial. Organization and centralization of the content can be achieved with software or spreadsheets, especially with technology. Significantly, the efficiency can help improve the RFP process where the approach used is manual. This is especially important since it ensures ownership of some sections.
References
Cramer, L., (2011). Request For Proposal # 2011-7-1615 For Electronic Medical Records (Emr) As Per The Specifications Listed Herein. The University Of Akron.
Menachemi, N., & Collum, T. H. (2018). Benefits and drawbacks of electronic health record systems. Risk management and healthcare policy, 4, 47. Web.
Ozanich, G., & Shanholtzer, M. B. (2015). Health Information Management and Technology. McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Spencer, J. S. (2018). U.S. Patent No. 6,356,909. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Web.