This is a Collaborative Learning Community (CLC) assignment.
The purpose of this assignment is to illustrate the complexity and challenges that accompany the integration of health information technology within an organization.
The Information Systems Integration Project has three components: a group interview, an individual response, and a PowerPoint presentation. This assignment will use the results from Parts One and Two to complete the project.
As a group, create a 12-15 slide PowerPoint presentation (not including a reference slide) based on Parts One and Two of the project that explains some of the challenges and planning required when utilizing technology in managing a health care organization. Focus specifically on the company or organization where the IT professional you interviewed is working and include speaker notes and in-text citations for each slide.
The presentation should contain the following components:
1. Introduction
2. Background statement that presents the mission and goals of the selected organization
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*** I just need 3 power point slides. The first question is the introduction slide which will include speaker notes. question 2 will require 2 slides with speaker notes. I have also attached part one of the project for reference. The health care organization is NAtional Jewish Health located in Denver, CO.
****Reference****
1. What skills and experience do you consider to be the most crucial for an IT manager in the health care industry?
Communication is one of the most important skills. You have to be able to communicate with coworkers, network or software programmers and with anyone within facility that is having IT issues. Second would be knowledge of the programs. Each one is different in how they perform and what is needed to reboot them. Third would be problem solving. IT is always trying to solve problems.
2. How do you ensure your organization is keeping up with the continual advances in medical technology and other technological trends?
Most of the programs that our facility uses have automatic software updates. We do have one day a week, Thursday nights, that is set to update those that are not automatically updated. Not often, but sometimes, our lead manager will have to come and do a full reboot and two of the programs we have, as they are over 10 years old. We also have two in our department, that try to stay on top of things and make sure that we have the newest versions of everything installed.
3. What EMR/EHR system does your company or organization use? Why this selection?
Within our facility, we have 11 different programs that we use. Different departments have different ones that are compatible with their work. We have three major ones that all departments use. Tempus is our scheduling system. Affinity is where patients get registered, and all billing or financial accounts are. Allscripts is the main EHR, where all patient information is held, except anything financial.
4. How do you implement significant improvement and changes to an IT infrastructure?
We have three ways that we keep improving our IT infrastructure: have the best and highest quality of Wi-Fi capabilities, keep the best security and the most up to date, and last always watching our cloud where we have all our company’s information stored. We have different teams that do each of these. For example, we have four in our department that only work with security. They are very important, as they have to watch for any kind of attacks, leaks or even HIPAA violations through the wires.
5. How do you explain technical details to a non-technical audience?
Just as with doctors and nurses, having to use layman’s terms, we have to do the same. Talking to a non-technical person about configurations, latency, JAVA, RAM, microblogging, caching, and many more, will only cause confusion and frustrate the person. It is better to break things down and use very basic language like websites, databases, and to just give an idea of what you are doing.
6. Do you work with a data-warehouse information system or cloud applications? How do these systems affect data storage protocol?
At our facility we use data warehouse system. With the type of information and amount of information, we need the ability to have it stored in a data warehouse. We need the ability to have the type of information separated depending on what it is and used for. We are an outpatient hospital with specialist. We have our own school for kids that have severe asthma and allergy and cannot attend a public school. We also have our own lab, as we are a research hospital. With the different types of information our facility holds, it is necessary to have it in the warehouse, where it actually separates the information from day-to-day information needed, to everything needed for data reading.
7. What methods have you or your team had to implement to ensure effective network security?
We have firewalls, encrypted emails, data loss prevention, remote access VPN’s, access control, multi-factor authentication, anti-malware software and a few others. These are just the basics. And as I mentioned earlier, we have a team of 4 that their job is just security.
8. How did you come to work in this industry? Why are you interested in health care?
My father was an engineer, and I knew that is not what I wanted to do, but something close. He bought me a computer at 8 and I was always trying to figure everything out on the computer. Once I began high school, I was able to take computer classes and realized I had a passion for computers and everything IT. I knew I was good at figuring out things and love to fix things. I knew with technology always advancing, there would always be a need for IT. So, I went to school for it and actually enjoyed it. I have been doing it for 13 years now. As far as health care, someone I went to school with ended up getting a job at a health facility and told me about how it was great to work for, so I applied and here I am today.
9. Are you or your team in charge of preparing cost-analysis reports to be presented to the organization’s stakeholders? If so, how do you prepare for it?
Our department director is the one that does it. He is always up to date with ways to make our processes easier, cheaper and the best. He has been working for three years now, to get our big guys up top, to change our systems to just one instead of 11. We are finally going to get EPIC in 2022-2023. This will make it easier, even for our team. Being able to monitor one system instead of 11, will be so much easier for all.
10. What research do you or your team conduct before deploying a new software system or process?
Our director does that as well. He does take much input from all employees, as we get to be in the middle of it all and are able to tell him, what works and what does not. Also, with so many of us, we are bound to always keep up to date with new software systems coming out. Just as with how we have really pushed for EPIC.
11. Tell us about the teams you managed and how you built them?
We now have seven teams, the latest being the virtual team since we now do telehealth appointments and many employees working from home. Our other teams or development team, process team, security team, IT operations team, support team and quality assurance/testing team. They were all built before I came, except the virtual.
12. What technical projects have you worked on in the past that excited you and why?
The most exciting has been developing. It is one thing to already work with a system that has been running, but to actually develop something, is more exciting. When the pandemic began, we were able to develop a site that would allow covid testing scheduled online as well as covid vaccines scheduled online. This has made it so much simpler for those already working in our scheduling department, as this would have overwhelmed them. The system is very different from what is used in house. Also, setting up telehealth was an adventure. It did not come simple, especially when trying to teach all the doctors how it works.
13. Where do you go to find your favorite sources to study technical innovations in your free time?
There are several blogs that I go to. Wired.com, TheNextWeb.com, and TechCrunch.com are the three I go to the most. Not only do you get to read blogs, but you get to engage in conversations with other techies. They keep you up to date with new things going on. It is a great way to stay engaged.
14. How do you gather system and user requirements?
There are many ways, but the ones we use the most: observation, document analysis, and interface analysis. Documentation of everything is mandatory. Confirmation is necessary. We are always told and taught to never make assumptions. Listen closely to hear how or why things may have occurred and what will happen next.
15. What style of PM do you prefer, for example, Agile or Waterfall?
I do not really have a preference because I am always wanting to learn new ways to do the same thing. The one we use at our facility is called PRINCE2. Everything we do is in stages. It allows us to be very thorough with our work. This is another reason why we have different teams and tasks. Another facility I worked at for a short time we did use Waterfall. It was a step-by-step and you do not move onto one thing without finishing out the other. In other words, lots of phases to be done in order.
Members of the Black Group, you did well as a team and in answering the relevant questions. The answers that Jason gave you will help you better understand the practicalities and difficulties that face IT professionals, especially those in the healthcare industry. I also hope that the answers you submitted have provided you with an added knowledge as to how a practical supervisor/manager handles the day-to-day activities in an IT department as well as how to interact with each other as a team.
