Project Vision Document: My Health Record - Paper Example

My Health Record is a secure online project that contains a summary of a persons health information. The project was proposed by the Commonwealth Government of Australia to unify medical records from every patient in the facility hence transforming the medicine practice (Standing & Cripps, 2015).

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The vision of the project is to create secure, reliable and, trustworthy sources of medical information using the electronic health record. The proposed project aims to provide efficient medical services to patients by enabling them to access and manage their own medical records in conjunction with their health providers (Porter, Devine, Vivanti, Ferguson & O'sullivan, 2015). The health records are designed in a way such that they ensure individual privacy and availability to all fields in the health care industry. The ability to share health information electronically between patients and healthcare professionals will enhance efficiency of the delivery of healthcare hence reducing hospitalizations (Yontz & Schumacher, 2015). The project intends to make the electronic health record interactions automatic thus forming a natural part of workflows.

Digitizing the healthcare system will save the Australian government over $7 billion annually which is likely to prove the substantial improvements in the number of admissions avoided every year and in the client experience during hospital visits (Martin, Henry, Gray, Day, Bochner, Ferro & Schwab, 2016). The Australian expenditure on the health sector initially spent an estimated amount of $140.2 billion in 2011-2012 which is a rise from the $82.9 billion in 2001-2002. Individually, every person spends an estimated amount of $5,881 which strains the government since it funds 69.7% of the total health expenditure. Public hospital services are the largest spenders in the health sector consuming 31.8% of the recurrent expenditure followed by the medical services spending 18.1% and finally medications with a 14.2 percentage (Standing & Cripps, 2015). These expenditures are, however, expected to increase by approximately five folds by 2050. It is for this reason that the Commonwealth government has approved the required funds and resources to fund this project.

The major barrier to the project is how to handle the change management issues which are likely to hinder fast and effective outcomes. The lack of a strategic direction and clear policies may make the stakeholders apprehensive about the project (Martin, Henry, Gray, Day, Bochner, Ferro & Schwab, 2016). The project should, therefore, have a clear implementation plan that point out to success. Most people may not understand the potential importance of digitizing the health system which might make the potential stakeholders to lose confidence in the ability of the project to attain its vision (Gee & Banfield, 2015). Failing to engage the stakeholders in the progress of the project may also lead to the withdrawal of financial support from them making the project unsuccessful. Furthermore, executing the E-Health initiatives poorly may cause the possible discontinuity of the program.

My Health Record is a project that involves the development of technological infrastructures and strategic partnerships to put together the best quality service provider (Gee & Banfield, 2015). The system is capable of improving the quality of service given to the patients and reducing the issues that initially arose due to lack of important information shared by the health providers about patients (Banbury & Nancarrow, 2014). The project, therefore addresses the rising cost of healthcare by sustaining it hence enhancing the efficiencies in the healthcare system.

The My Health Record project has various benefits which include the reduction of medical errors in the healthcare system. The fact that the proposed new system allows for easier access into ones records gives them a better chance of noticing medical errors in their charts (Banbury, Roots & Nancarrow, 2014). The level of transparency provided by the system will reduce errors due to charting by empowering patients to keep track of their personal records. The new project will also get rid of the redundant testing in hospitals (Standing & Cripps, 2015). Hospitals often conduct duplicate testing because patients are serviced by different providers at different times for the same problem. In this situation, the next provider does not usually have access to the lab results from the previous provider thus the need for new lab results (Banbury, Roots & Nancarrow, 2014). My Health Record system will allow patients to easily access their lab results using their Health Security Number from any site of service and to share the information with their Health providers.

The project increases the level of privacy in ones personal records. Manually, patients cannot know whether someone has accessed their chart or not. The new system has improved this quality by notifying patients using their Health Security Number in case of any unusual activity in their accounts (Banburry, roots & Nancarrow, 2014). Finally, the new system acts as a bridge between the paper-based and electronic records providers. The new systems long-term goal is to develop open-source software that operates a web portal for patient access enabling patients to obtain their Health Security Number immediately after making the request.

In conclusion, the Commonwealth government has made the best decision in investing in the My Health Record project because of the various positive improvements it will bring to the current healthcare status (Ahlfeldt, Persson, Rexhepi & Wahlander, 2016). Apart from its financial benefits, the project also benefits both the patients and the healthcare providers by providing the health summary of the patients and their discharge summaries, displaying the diagnostic image reports such as x-rays and the prescription the patient is currently on (Ahlfeldt, Persson, Rexhepi & Wahlander, 2016). Finally, it also contains the special letters and the event summaries entered by the previous healthcare provider involved with the patient.

References

Ahlfeldt, R. M., Persson, A., Rexhepi, H., & Wahlander, K. (2016). Supporting Active Patient and Health Care Collaboration: A Prototype for Future Health Care Information Systems. Health informatics journal, 22(4), 839-853.

Australia, L. L. C., Devine, A., Marella, M., & Melbourne, A. C. C. (2016). Access to maternal and newborn health services for women with disabilities in Timor-Leste.

Banbury, A., Roots, A., & Nancarrow, S. (2014). Rapid review of applications of ehealth and remote monitoring for rural residents. Australian Journal of Rural Health, 22(5), 211-222.

Gee, A., McGarty, C., & Banfield, M. (2015). What drives systemic mental health advocates? Goals, strategies, and values of Australian consumer and carer advocacy organizations. Sage Open, 5(4), 2158244015615384.

Martin, J. H., Henry, D., Gray, J., Day, R., Bochner, F., Ferro, A., ... & Schwab, M. (2016). Achieving the World Health Organization's vision for clinical pharmacology. British journal of clinical pharmacology, 81(2), 223-227.

McAlearney, A. S., Hefner, J. L., Sieck, C., Rizer, M., & Huerta, T. R. (2014). Evidence-based management of ambulatory electronic health record system implementation: an assessment of conceptual support and qualitative evidence. International journal of medical informatics, 83(7), 484-494.

Porter, J. M., Devine, A., Vivanti, A., Ferguson, M., & O'sullivan, T. A. (2015). Development of a Nutrition Care Process implementation package for hospital dietetic departments. Nutrition & Dietetics, 72(3), 205-212.

Standing, C., & Cripps, H. (2015). Critical success factors in the implementation of electronic health records: A twocase comparison. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 32(1), 75-85.Yontz, L. S., Zinn, J. L., & Schumacher, E. J. (2015). Perioperative nurses' attitudes toward the electronic health record. Journal of PeriAnesthesia Nursing, 30(1), 23-32.

Young, J., Egan, T., Jaye, C., Williamson, M., Askerud, A., Raude, P., & Penese, M. (2017). Shared care requires a shared vision: Communities of clinical practice in a primary care setting. Journal of Clinical Nursing.