Part 1:
BUSINESS CASE FOR INVESTING IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (IT) SOLUTION OF “TELEHEALTH WITH MICROSOFT TEAM”
AT ST. CUTHBERT’S HEALTHCARE HOSPITALS
Management St. Cuthbert’s healthcare wants to empower their hospital with information technology (IT) infrastructure. For taking this business decision, this case study is developed. First to look at the healthcare sector and today’s scenario. Health care sector is very critically & relevant industry. Crisis and service deliverables goes together in healthcare sector. Earlier 2007-2008 financial crisis had occurred. A run on bank and money caused a lot of economic turmoil and health implications. But this time, crisis of COVID-19 has brought around health exigencies of unprecedented magnitude. Many countries around the world has seen run on their healthcare system. In these trying times, St. Cuthbert’s healthcare medical service want to deliver healthcare and also have vision of empowering hospital with IT infrastructure. These are coming finding perfect synergy at present.
Before proceeding to quantitative and quantitative data collection, St. Cuthbert’s healthcare details of establishment, operation & efficiencies are surmise as below;
Sr. No.
Particular
Detail
1.
Size, number & type of hospital owned
3 medium sized not for profit private hospital
2.
Location
Urban area around Australia
3.
Total number of beds
500
4.
No of medical accredited practitioner
830
5.
FTE staff
Average 700 per year
6.
Included services
· Routine medical & clinical services
· Maternity, Rehabilitation & Mental health services
· Day surgery treatment & overnight admissions
· Hospital admission for doctor/specialist referral or hospital transfer
· Home nursing
· Disability service and
· Social outreach programs.
IT infrastructure and capabilities cater to hospital’s operations and unique characteristics for purpose of higher interconnectivity, systematic record keeping, report management, better services and plethora of other use. On these lines, next we look at quantitative data input of in terms of IT infrastructure.
St. Cuthbert healthcare is private mid-size hospital and is following the department of health, Australian Government guidelines. In compliance with these guidelines, St. Cuthbert’s healthcare private hospitals, are having IT system and technology capabilities already built in following key areas;
· Registration and record keeping IT enabled system for patient details, referral doctor, speciality service, admission requirement, cost, complete address and insurance cover.
· Admission with date, month and year.
· For elective surgery data of no of days, mode, urgency status, ventilator support, intended stay in hospital, approximate days of intensive care unit (ICU) admission, waiting time recorded in IT enabled record keeping system.
· Data of discharge, post care need, home nursing post discharge, revisit reschedule, specialist area, medical bill payment mode & process recorded in IT enabled record keeping system.
· Electronic manuals for social outreach program records, documented process, guidelines, cost-benefit, compliance and program success summary.
· Patient’s medical record keeping in electronic files.
· Electronic record keeping manuals of procedure and guideline for sanitisation, admission, in-patient service, discharge and post care.
Hospitals serves patient as per current trend in ailment condition prevailing in society. On these lines, next step is to look at quantitative data.
A dedicated page for COVID-19 related information is established by Australian government where graphical statistics are getting released & updated. A snapshot of all territories in Australia being affected shows rising number of cases, death, testing and increase in pandemic.
Mission of hospital is to inspire hope and contribute to health and well-being with compassionate care provided to everyone, touching all aspects of their lives that includes physical, emotional, intellectual, social and spiritual. Based on this mission statement, management is shaping vision to upgrade hospital infrastructure to scope out IT need, requirement and its implementation in St. Cuthbert’s healthcare private hospitals in Australia. Thereby, following business target are arrived;
· Listing areas for IT capabilities.
· Find alternative solution.
· Isolate problem and arrive at best solution.
Next step is to proceed towards documenting this project in alignment with business target.
Management’s vision to empower St. Cuthbert’s healthcare with IT infrastructure is challenged by race against time, constrains in allocation of resources, urgency of decision making and still remaining true to values of contributing to overall development and well-being in patient care. Focus is to identify viable IT solutions & alternatives that could be adopted in existing IT infrastructure at St. Cuthbert’s healthcare.
Below areas are isolated for enabling alternative solutions with use of IT infrastructure and shortlisting best solution that could be quickly procured and implemented;
1. Mental health care services are provided at St. Cuthbert’s healthcare. However, in present circumstances of low mobility, patients are needing these services in form of home care. Therefore, this area is isolated for IT solution of “Telehealth” to address these needs. This small change in process with IT enabled alternative creates easy and quick method for delivering mental health care with social outreach programs.
2. Complete revamp of existing IT infrastructure is too tedious, time consuming and against urgent decision making in fast evolving situation. Next alternative is to look at scaling up existing infrastructure. Patient flow is an important part of the admission and discharge procedures. Patients are given estimates of the costs before admittance and payers/patients are billed at discharge. Setting up of Wi-fi hotspots and providing access to existing IT framework for initial screening, registration, admission and other patient inflow system are smart ways of leveraging existing IT infrastructure. But lack of connectivity across healthcare services is since long realised as a problematic area. This has resulted in significant impacts on the quality of care and patient safety. In current times of COVID-19, safety and patient care has brought unique challenge due to infectious virus spread. However, remaining true to delivering values of intellectual, social and spiritual wellbeing, setting up IT enabled control centre is best solution. Particularly this isolated area will pave future path for delivering healthcare services catering into area of interconnectivity and complexity in disease conditions. A small group of patients will give as many case studies but ramping up with control centre would enable leveraging large & diverse data sets. These benefits will be reaped by entire community at large.
Final step of this business case is to develop justification for investing in IT solution “Telehealth with Microsoft Team” at St. Cuthbert’s healthcare hospitals.
IT enabled solution for setting up dedicated control centre requires following considerations for creating unique set up at St. Cuthbert’s healthcare;
1. Stakeholder team: Stakeholder team is created for purpose of managing project in organised way, working towards maximising project benefits, providing suitable framework and enable best decision making. On these lines, key stake holders for this project are;
· Specialist “subject matter expert” medical profession.
· Board of directors.
· Human resource staff representative.
· Principal medical officer / dean from each hospital.
· Existing IT service provider for providing quickly implemented solutions.
· Finance team representative for cost & valuation.
· Support staff representative.
After constituting this team, stakeholders deliberate on how to proceed with implementation of project? This is discussed in following headers.
2. Requirement to be raised with IT vendor: List of requirements to be raised from IT vendor are listed below. These are main headers of requirements that serves purpose of quick, smart and best solution and keeping in mind future IT infrastructure development.
Sr. No.
Requirement
Target achievement based on requirement
1.
Control centre email
Dedicated email “
[email protected]” at control centre for contact coordination.
2.
Telehealth service platform
IT enabled system and process documentation for delivering mental health, social outreach, post care service, consultation and home care facilities.
3.
Dedicated control area set up with existing IT system.
This will serve a single point contact for patient admission coordination, referral and transfer. This dedicated control centre is required to be set in earmarked area with existing IT enabled infrastructure with Wifi facilities.
4.
IT service staff
A dedicated IT service staff for servicing issues, breakdown and emergency matters for dedicated COVID-19 centre.
3. IT solution in context of vendor solution analysis, vendor offering solution, what is being offered by vendor and selection of IT vendor for quickly procuring desired solution architecture at St. Cuthbert’s healthcare hospital: For these objectives, stakeholder with varied skills will ensure impartial analysis and decision making keeping in mind business targets. For immediate start, Microsoft team is good solution as developing such system is against need of hour. Shortlisting “Microsoft team” saves a lot of time, money, effort. Requirement of IT staff for servicing can enable quick implementation of project. Existing IT vendor can arrange for support staff with listed scope, requirement gathering, service document containing processes, dedicated email ID and installing overall solution at control centre. Following list of solutions, especially catering to healthcare, are being provided by Microsoft team.
· Tele Doctor consultation
· Group call with health care professionals
· Adaptability to various devices
· Remote working
· Ease of creating set up
· Product design and demo are readily available.
4. Time line and...