Implementation of an Electronic Patient’s Record in Process Oriented Healthcare

• This article will offer a pathway for understanding recent changes and improvements in organizing and managing healthcare such as the flows of secure information about patients in healthcare. When patients visit healthcare providers they expect the personnel to have a patient centered view and to be informed what has happened in every unit they visited (Lindberg 2002, Eriksson 2007). I will discuss that this concerns a process-oriented organization and documented patient’s information treated with security. However, the reality is that most healthcare institutions like private healthcare and public healthcare work as traditional organizations (Scott et al 2000) and use paper based records, and as a consequence the flow of information is not optimal (Åhlfeldt 2008). Documentation takes personnel an increasing working time, crowding out the personnel’s time with patients. Still, documentation is necessary to give patients the best healthcare and make visible the personnel’s work. When improvements are accepted it becomes a condition for the strategizing healthcare organization, to emerge coordinating healthcare activities into a process-oriented healthcare with secure information. This study aims to investigate how the implementation of an electronic patient’s record manages information security and if process-oriented healthcare supports the flows of information. By describing process-orientation in healthcare, documents and questionnaires focus on the changes in personnel group’s opinions when an electronic patient’s record is implemented in a process organized hospital department. The personnel’s opinion compares between monitoring tools as paper based records and data based records. The study shows that to provide patients with opportunity for the best healthcare with the right information at the right time, and to protect sensitive patient information from distribution to unauthorized persons, increasing with an electronic patient record. The study also shows that process orientation particularly supports the flows of secure information. Thus, the personnel’s opinion support implementation of the new electronic patient’s record, they have a lack of knowledge to identify patient’s information as ongoing information without unnecessary repeating and commonly continue to double document about the patients. The study highlights high-quality education as protection against undesired changes in information security. I am argued that it is difficult to successfully manage implementations in the healthcare even when the organizations structures mostly support the improvements. Patient’s information transfer between healthcare personnel and organizational boarders need standardizations such as process-oriented organisation and an electronic patient record. The healthcare is facing great challenges in order to manage personnel’s way of working.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business (hsv//eng)

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Hälso- och sjukvårdsorganisation, hälsopolitik och hälsoekonomi (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Health Care Service and Management, Health Policy and Services and Health Economy (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Process-oriented

information security

implementation

electronic patient records

quality improvement

questionnaire

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