This Week You Will Start With System Planning While Consider ✓ Solved

This week you will start with system planning while consider

This week you will start with system planning while considering the following components: · Describe a fictional healthcare organization: type, size of staff, and amount and type of patients it is able to serve. · Establish the need for a system. · Set achievable goals and objectives. · Allocate a budget. · Identify a project manager (a fictitious name and title) and project team (fictitious names and titles). · Determine whether to build in-house or acquire from outside, and support your decision with reasoning. · Set a timeline for system implementation or project completion. To support your work, use your course and textbook readings and also use the South University Online Library. Cite sources and provide references in APA format.

Paper For Above Instructions

Executive Summary

This document presents a system planning proposal for a fictional healthcare organization, Harbor Community Health Center (HCHC). The plan defines organizational characteristics, establishes the need for an electronic health record (EHR) and practice management system, sets measurable goals and objectives, allocates a preliminary budget, identifies a project manager and project team, evaluates build-versus-buy options, and provides a realistic implementation timeline. The planning approach follows recognized health IT and project management best practices (ONC, 2019; PMI, 2017).

Organization Description

Harbor Community Health Center (HCHC) is a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC)-style outpatient clinic serving an urban catchment of approximately 60,000 residents. HCHC employs 85 staff members, including 8 physicians, 6 nurse practitioners, 12 registered nurses, 6 medical assistants, 10 behavioral health providers, and 43 administrative and support staff. The clinic averages 18,000 patient visits annually and serves a diverse population including primary care, pediatrics, behavioral health, and chronic disease management populations, with a payer mix that includes Medicaid, Medicare, and uninsured patients.

Need for a System

HCHC currently relies on paper charts and fragmented billing spreadsheets, resulting in inefficiencies, delayed billing, care coordination gaps, and difficulty complying with quality reporting requirements. Inadequate documentation is linked to clinical safety risks and lost revenue (Buntin et al., 2011). Implementing an integrated EHR and practice management system will improve care coordination, facilitate reporting for value-based payment, reduce billing delayed claims, and enhance patient safety and population health management (Nguyen, Bellucci, & Nguyen, 2014; Sittig & Singh, 2015).

Goals and Objectives

Primary Goal: Implement an integrated EHR and practice management system within 12 months to improve clinical documentation, revenue cycle efficiency, and quality reporting.

  • Objective 1: Achieve 95% electronic charting for patient encounters by month 3 post-go-live (Buntin et al., 2011).
  • Objective 2: Reduce claim denial rate by 30% within six months of implementation through improved coding and front-end eligibility checks (Kaplan & Porter, 2011).
  • Objective 3: Enable automated public health and quality measure reporting (e.g., immunization, diabetes control) by month 6 post-go-live (ONC, 2019).
  • Objective 4: Improve patient access by implementing online scheduling and patient portal adoption to 25% of active patients in 12 months (HIMSS, 2016).

Budget Allocation (Preliminary)

The proposed budget is conservative for an FQHC of this size with moderate customization needs. Budget categories (rounded):

  • Software licensing and subscription (3-year): $240,000
  • Implementation services (configuration, data migration, training): $160,000
  • Hardware and network upgrades: $45,000
  • Project contingency (15%): $66,750
  • Change management and clinician backfill during go-live: $40,000
  • Maintenance and support (first-year): $48,000

Total preliminary budget: $599,750. This estimate aligns with published ranges for ambulatory EHR implementations when accounting for implementation services and contingency (Bates & Wright, 2009; McGonigle & Mastrian, 2017). A staged cashflow will be created to match grant opportunities and cash reserves.

Project Manager and Team

Project Manager: Alicia Moreno, MS Health Informatics, Director of Clinical Informatics (fictitious). Alicia will be responsible for overall project governance, stakeholder communications, budget oversight, and vendor coordination.

Project Team:

  • Dr. Samuel Lee, Medical Director (clinical lead)
  • Renee Carter, RN, Quality Improvement Coordinator (clinical workflows)
  • Marcus Patel, Finance Manager (billing and revenue cycle)
  • Olivia Nguyen, IT Manager (technical lead)
  • Javier Morales, Front Desk Supervisor (operations/user champion)
  • Patient Representative: Maria Torres (community liaison)
  • Vendor Implementation Specialist(s) (as contracted)

The governance structure will include a steering committee with executive sponsor (CEO), the project manager, and department leads to make timely decisions and escalate risks (PMI, 2017).

Build versus Buy Decision

Options considered: (1) Build an in-house custom EHR; (2) Acquire a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) EHR with vendor implementation; (3) Adopt a cloud-based EHR subscription offering tailored for FQHCs.

Recommendation: Acquire a cloud-based, COTS EHR configured for FQHC workflows (buy). Rationale:

  • Time to value: Commercial/cloud solutions enable faster deployment and reduce development time compared with custom builds (Nguyen et al., 2014).
  • Cost and sustainability: Building in-house requires sustained development staff, high upfront costs, and ongoing maintenance burden; a subscription model shifts capital expense to predictable operating expense and includes vendor support (Buntin et al., 2011).
  • Standards and compliance: Mature vendors provide certified modules for reporting and interoperability required for value-based programs, easing regulatory compliance (ONC, 2019).
  • Risk mitigation: Vendors experienced in ambulatory/FQHC settings reduce clinical workflow risk and provide best-practice templates (HIMSS, 2016).

Given HCHC’s moderate size and limited IT development capacity, buying and configuring a proven solution represents lower risk and better alignment with organizational capacity (Sittig & Singh, 2015).

Implementation Timeline

Estimated project timeline (12 months total):

  1. Month 0–1: Project initiation, governance, vendor selection, and contract negotiation.
  2. Month 2–3: Detailed requirements, workflow mapping, and initial configuration.
  3. Month 4–5: Data migration planning and technical infrastructure upgrades.
  4. Month 6: Build/configuration completion and initial clinician training (super-user program).
  5. Month 7: Pilot deployment in one clinic pod and iterative refinement.
  6. Month 8: Phased go-live across remaining clinics (staggered over 2 months).
  7. Month 9–11: Post-go-live stabilization, optimization, and quality measure reporting setup.
  8. Month 12: Full project closeout, evaluation against objectives, and transition to steady-state support.

Contingency weeks are embedded within each phase to manage unforeseen delays; continuous stakeholder engagement and robust change management will be emphasized to reduce resistance (PMI, 2017).

Conclusion

Implementing a cloud-based, vendor-supported EHR and practice management system at Harbor Community Health Center will address clinical, operational, and financial needs, improve reporting and patient safety, and position the organization for value-based payment models. The recommended buy-and-configure approach balances cost, time-to-value, and risk for an organization of HCHC’s size and capacity, while the outlined governance, budget, and timeline provide a realistic pathway to successful implementation (ONC, 2019; Buntin et al., 2011).

References

  • Bates, D. W., & Wright, A. (2009). Evaluating the safety of electronic health records. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 16(4), 463–464.
  • Buntin, M. B., Burke, M. F., Hoagland, G. W., & Blumenthal, D. (2011). The benefits of health information technology: A review of the recent literature shows predominantly positive results. Health Affairs, 30(3), 464–471.
  • HIMSS. (2016). HIMSS EHR Implementation Toolkit. Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society.
  • Kaplan, R. S., & Porter, M. E. (2011). How to solve the cost crisis in health care. Harvard Business Review, 89(9), 46–52.
  • McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K. (2017). Nursing Informatics and the Foundation of Knowledge (4th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning.
  • Nguyen, L., Bellucci, E., & Nguyen, L. T. (2014). Electronic health records implementation: An evaluation of information system lifecycle and adoption. Journal of Medical Systems, 38(1), 1–10.
  • Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC). (2019). Health IT Playbook. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
  • PMI. (2017). A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide) (6th ed.). Project Management Institute.
  • Sittig, D. F., & Singh, H. (2015). A new socio-technical model for studying health information technology in complex adaptive healthcare systems. Quality & Safety in Health Care, 24(3), 196–204.
  • World Health Organization. (2016). Global diffusion of eHealth: Making universal health coverage achievable. WHO.

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