System Analysis for Health Informatics – Analysis AreaEssay Preview: System Analysis for Health Informatics – Analysis AreaReport this essayAnalysis AreasIntroductionThe acquiring of information is one of the principal concerns of the system analyst when starting a new analysis and design activity. The analyst seeks to unearth answers to vital questions that are essential to defining the new system. Functional analysis, process analysis, tasks and activities analysis, and data analysis should be scrutinized closely when performing a system analysis. This process was performed on the electronic medical record project at University of North Carolina (UNC) Health System. UNC developed an integrated Electronic Medical Record UNC health system that the entire organization can access. This paper will discuss the business knowledge relevant to UNC and their paperless electronic medical record project. It will describe the primary elements and approaches of functional analysis, process analysis, activity and task analysis and data analysis. The orientation and flow between each within a functional model will be explained.
Business Knowledge from a Systems ViewBusiness knowledge is defined as a comprehensive understanding of business functions and the specific areas under analysis (Modell, 2003). A requirement of gathering business knowledge is to attain an in depth understanding of the functions of the organization. The analyst needs to know the processes and tasks that are essential to accomplish those functions as well as the association of those functions, processes, and tasks to all of the others throughout the firm. The business knowledge of the analyst starts with identifying each function of the firm and of the user (Modell, 2003).
Within an 8-year span, the University of North Carolina (UNC) Health System developed an integrated Electronic Medical Record consisting of an electronic inpatient progress note and outpatient clinic note documentation system and applied it in the health care clinical setting with plans to eliminate the paper chart within the entire Health System. The overall objective is to develop modules within the clinical information system (CIS) for a myriad of services to include physician electronic order entry, inpatient nursing documentation, health maintenance prompts, clinical image acquisition and a display for radiological and other graphical based documentation (Berger, Brooks, Kichak, & Kammer, 2001).
Functional Analysis-Primary Elements and PurposeA function is defined as a group of related processes or activities composed of all performed to achieve a predetermined goal (Modell, 2003). UNC organized a board inclusively to manage the budget and CIS development. This committee is inclusive of a Chief Information Officer of the Health System, representation for the Hospital Administrator, and the Medical School clinic. Members of programmers, nursing staff, physicians, medical record administrators all take part in developing electronic applications and improve the existing ones. All of these representatives agree to an electronic medical records system for inpatient and outpatient populations.
Key Processes in Clinical NotingA key process described in UNCs development of an electronic medical record is clinical noting. Progress notes for inpatients and a clinic note for outpatient documentation were created electronically at the institution. Instead of utilizing the paper billing form as done in many medical practices, the outpatient notes are dictated and coded for electronic billing by the physician. Thus a clinic note is generated before billing rather than afterwards as done in inpatient coding of care. This system of electronic documentation is based on required dictation, transcription, activity list edits, and electronic signature of all outpatient clinical care notes (Berger et al., 2001).
Process AnalysisModell defines process analysis as a series of tasks or activities that are reliant on each other and distinctly flows from one activity or task to another (Modell, 2003). A problem that many medical centers face today is that physicians are not receiving notification in a judicious manner that there are documents such as discharge summaries, history and physical exams, outpatient clinic notes, and operative notes are ready for signature (Berger et al., 2001). Formerly, physicians had to report to the records department if they had any documents that needed their signatures; this caused a big issue with retrieving the patients chart due to the increased outpatient visits. To alleviate that problem, the clinical information
of the patient chart is created using the patient information provided by a medical record. This is used to check whether a patient has already undergone the necessary procedures and have approved the physician.
The medical record creates an information structure that is easily replicated and quickly processed. A common use case of this is to document patients’ healthcare needs such as in hospital care. There are many types of medical records; most notably, clinical notes, inpatient records, bi-lingual records, and other medical records (Bernstein, 2003). For some purposes, these are called “patient records”, other term in this context refers to a series of or data records. The record is then used to identify the patient for that same purpose and for a variety of related purposes. In case of a physician or health care professional having the need for the information, they may need to write a patient log from that log to help with the record creation process.
A medical record is a number of records that are associated to a physician or health care professional or the patient. These systems and practices are based on a systematic database, which is commonly referred to as the patient database. A patient record is generally an index of the number of records in the clinical record, which is called the Patient-Degree Reference Reference Reference System (McGrath et al., 2001). These records contain information on individual conditions from the clinic, primary care physicians, and patients including a patient diagnosis and discharge schedule. These are frequently used in conjunction with the clinical record to identify illnesses in certain conditions and provide important health care services (Anderson et al., 1985; Baer, 1987).
Another type of medical record is a log which can be used to provide information about care received and reported to the individual doctor, hospital, or other medical organization using a patient record. These records are available to be entered in the Healthcare Medical Records and Health Service Information Database (HMORID) in the following manner:
Each year in most health care agencies, doctors can use an individual physician’s patient records to process reports of sickle cell phone calls, patient name changes, or other hospitalization reports, and other hospital-related reports (Green, 1999: 3, 643).
Medical records that are used to prepare medical records (such as the patient list, pathology reports, and bi-lingual records). The information is used for processing medical records that do not require the individual physician’s written knowledge to review or approve. Patients may have access to the patient checklist to review or approve other procedures that are performed on the individual doctor’s patient list.
A clinical record to record the number of patients enrolled in an order (P-group) or course, a change of clinic, or hospitalized patient or a change of hospitalization (Krohnert, 1983). P-groups are a clinical care group of physician or resident medical staff who serve in the same patient medical group. Some P-groups are known as