Using an e-Health Strategy to Facilitate the Design and Development of Effective Healthcare Processes

Abstract

The recent discussions and adoptions of e-health, and more specifically e-health solutions, within Australia and internationally can also be thought of as a catalyst for improving quality and safety, managing risk and controlling runaway cost in health care. e-Health, as defined by the World Health Organisation (WHO), is a combination of information and communication technologies in the health sector. The ultimate goal of e-health is to strengthen health systems, support delivery of high quality care, improve people’s health and monitor public health (http://www.who.int/topics/ehealth/en/); thus it is also integrally connected with process improvement and hence the principles of lean thinking and six sigma are relevant in this context. The following looks at what Epworth HealthCare (Epworth) could adopt in order to embrace a complete e-health solution that is consistent with its expansion and redevelopment programme as well as the goal to provide the hospital with state-of-the-art facilities into the future. As noted in the literature, such an examination of a large-scale project represents a unique opportunity to implement digital clinical systems, which underpin redesigned workflow and processes to achieve improvements in standards, performance, quality of clinical care, safety and reduce risks. The case study thus outlines a proposed plan that focuses on developing an all encompassing e-health strategy to support the hospital’s healthcare strategic plan and the goals set by the Epworth board (We note that this material is not necessarily representative of any plan that Epworth HealthCare will or plan to undertake. Rather, it is based on a project conducted by Raphael Di Francesco under the supervision of Prof. Nilmini Wickramasinghe. Moreover, the chapter is used solely for educational purposes and is in no way suggesting poor practice and/or improper management.).

Appendices

Appendix A: Structure of the Organisation

Appendix B: Interview Question Protocol

Section	Action	Who	When	Deliverables format
1	Understand Business and IT objectives	Chief Clinical Information Officer
1.1	Collection of existing business and IT documents (vision, mission, strategy, etc.)			*Vision document
				*Mission document
		As above		*Business and IT Strategies documents
1.2	Collection of Epworth objectives and timing (current business plan) documents	As above		*HealthCare 2010 Annual Report
2	Identify clinical IT decisions distribution across roles	Chief Clinical Information Officer
2.1	Identification of the major clinical IT decision that are being made in the business	As above		Answers
2.2	Identification of who is deciding on what	As above		Answers
3	Assess the extent of IT alignment with clinical requirements/maturity model	Chief Clinical Information Officer
3.1	Collection of employee survey	As above		Survey results document
3.2	Documentation of the current organisation level of maturity	As above		Answers
4	Assess of what is, and what is not, working in the clinical environment	Exec Director Group Finance (Operational Performance Management)
4.1	People (ref to PPTS form)
4.1.1	Resources	As above		Answers
4.1.2	Skills and experience	As above		Answers
4.1.3	Communication and management style	As above		Answers
4.2	Process (ref to PPTS form)
4.2.1	Identification of key clinical processes and gaps	As above		Answers/documents
4.2.2	Identification of to what extend the clinical strategy initiatives are dependent on IT	As above		Answers
4.2.3	Service availability (Collection of IT service reports)	As above		Monthly IT Service Reports (past 12 months)
4.2.4	Operations services efficiently, effectiveness	As above		Reports
4.2.5	Service levels (Epworth service level agreement)	As above		Reports
4.3	Technology (ref to PPTS form)
4.3.1	Identification of key clinical IT applications and gaps	As above		Answers/documents
4.3.2	Current state of the e-health information access and sharing complexity, aligned with business needs and compatibility between systems	As above		Answers
4.3.2.1	On-sites	As above		Answers
4.3.2.2	Between sites	As above		Answers
4.3.2.3	Off-sites (Doctors, patients and others)	Doctors		Answers
4.4	Security (ref to PPTS form)
4.4.1	Current state of data protection, service continuity and recoverability	Group Director Quality Productivity, Improvement and Risks		DR & BC last year reports/Answers