Consider the following scenario:
You are an IT Director at a medium-sized urban hospital with 160 beds and 1,500 associates. It is a full-service hospital with a typical list of departments to include multiple ICUs, mother & baby, emergency services, radiology, oncology, surgery, etc. You are considering a new cloud based EHR application, because the vendor of your current locally installed and operated EMR has lost market share, failed to pass meaningful use attestation, and unreliably supports its application that has shown clear signs of general instability. Because you are currently running a “failed” and “unreliable” system. Your organization will need to consider what they can keep from the existing system and what they will need to implement to resolve reliability issues and comply with the meaningful use requirements.
Begin by using the structured analysis systems development technique (chapter 1: pages 17,18-22, and the systems development life cycle (SDLC) (chapter 1: pages 19, Figure 1-19, and 36, to plan, analysis, design, and support the proposed information system.
In the System Planning Phase, begin with formal systems request (chapter 1 page 20). Followed by preliminary investigation of the business opportunity or problem. Complete a feasibility study considering costs and benefits, recommending a course of action,
Move to the Systems Analysis Phase (chapter 1: page 20, that builds the logical model of the new system. Beginning with the requirements engineering phase, investigating business processes and documentation. Delivering a system requirements document. Differentiate between functional and non-functional requirements.
User interface (chapter 8: pages 229-230. 232-234) is the key to system usability, and how end-users interact with the system.
In addition to addressing the Assignments Key Knowledge Requirements you are expected to:
Identify all critical elements and technologies necessary to achieve stated goals of your project.
Evaluate health information systems and data storage design.
Describe the resources you will require to achieve your project goals
Architect, at a high level, your proposed solution and draw a diagram in a software application of your choice, typically Power Point or Visio (hint search on Google for – “develop a cloud-based medical network diagram”).
List and describe clinical applications and/or services that will run on your proposed infrastructure, based on workflow, ergonomic, and human factors. In the case of EMR, describe which services will be in the cloud and whether there are any services that will need to be hosted internally and why or why not.
Identify benefits and risks to business operations and patient care environment, resulting from your proposed solution
Briefly describe to senior management why your solution will support the organization’s current and future strategy, organizational needs, and goals.
When working on the technical questions, do wear your technology analyst and network engineer heads – not business leader heads. What this means is that we require deep technical analysis in your papers, as part of this technical course. Follow the five steps of the SDLC model: Systems Planning, Systems Analysis, Systems Design, Systems Implementation, and Systems Support and Security. Demonstrate your comprehensive understanding of technical matters in the decision-making processes.
