Imat5211 Electronic Healthcare Application For Assessment Answers

Summarise the applications that are needed.
• Outline their interfaces with each other, and any necessary standards.
• Explain how the applications differ from current systems.
• Identify the benefits and how they will be measured

Answer:

Introduction

E-Business stands for electronic business and it is the set of business operations that are carried out using electronic communications and technologies. Some or the other form of e-business has become mandatory for the business firms in the present times. This is because e-business allows a business organization to carry out the business operations easily and target the global markets and customers.

One such step has been taken by a healthcare firm, ABC Healthcare. The firm was set up as a not for profit healthcare organization in 2001. It provides health services, care, support and assistance to the patients and has developed several centres as well. The need of healthcare has now increased with the current lifestyle and environmental issues. The organization has therefore decided to expand and involve e-business utilities in its architecture. There are various models and frameworks that are being explored for the same. It is recommended to develop and implement an e-health system for tele-health monitoring of the health of the patients.

The e-business model that will be followed in the application will be Business-to-Consumer (B2C) model. The business i.e. ABC Healthcare will provide the health services as remote diagnosis, online medical reports, tele-conference calls with the medical professionals, and medical advice to the patients using the e-health system. The patients will be able to record and send their health signs to the medical professionals to receive their comments.  

Significance of the Research

There are a lot many healthcare firms that are present all across the globe. In spite of the presence of so many firms, the patients suffer from the issues as delay in availing health services, long queues and waiting lines, unavailability of the medical professional at the desired time, etc. The research provides the details and benefits that the e-health system will provide to the patients and to the medical professionals.

Research Questions

• What will be the impacts of electronic health application on the organization and the stakeholders?
• What will be the set of changes that will come up and what would be the approach to manage the changes?
• What are the benefits and risks associated with the application? How will these be measures, monitored, and controlled?

Research Methodology

The research methodology that would be used in this case will be exploratory techniques using qualitative methods of research. It is the method in which the idea behind the deployment of the electronic health application will be explored. The steps in the methodology will include the finalization of the topic followed by preparation of the research questions to be answered. The significance and aim of the research will be listed and a proposal will be submitted. There will be research plan carried out covering determination of methodology, schedule, budget, and risks. The data will be collected using the data collection methods as surveys, interviews, observations, group discussions, and domain analysis. The gathered sets will then be analysed using automated tools and applications to come up with the results.

Data Collection Methods 

The following methods will be used for the purpose of data and information gathering.

• E-Surveys: Online portals and applications will be used to have an understanding of the e-business models and frameworks and the ones being used for electronic healthcare applications.
• Interviews: The entities as the members from ABC Healthcare, patient groups, groups of medical professionals, e-business supervisors, etc. will be interviewed to determine the requirements, impacts, benefits, and risks associated with the proposed system.
• Group Discussions: The varied groups will be formed to collect better information sets.
• Observations: The electronic health systems and applications available in the market will be observed and analyzed to gather the required details.
• Domain Analysis: The domain over here is electronic business and healthcare. These domains will be explored to have relevant data sets.

Report to Senior Management 

Impacts & Migration Plan

The electronic healthcare application that is proposed for ABC Healthcare has not been used or implemented in the organization before. Also, the organization does not have any other e-business capability currently in place. Therefore, the impacts that will come out of the application will be a mix of positive as well as negative impacts.

• There are several patients that travel from far off placed to receive the medical treatment and care from their respective medical professionals. The cost of travel and transportation for such patients will be reduced and the electronic healthcare application will allow them to use remote health services.
• The total number of patients will be divided between the ones visiting the centers and the ones using electronic application to seek medical help and guidance. This will lower down the longer waiting hours and the burden on the medical professionals as well.
• The medical professionals will be able to treat more number of patients using the electronic platform. Also, the time involved in providing the care will also get reduced (Minichiello et al., 2013).
• The geographical and location constraints will be avoided and the organization will be able to treat the individuals in remote areas as well.
• The patient details and the other information associated with the medical procedures will be kept in centralized database in electronic form. As a result, there will be minimal chances of data loss and its leakage. The current problems, such as data duplication and mishandling will also be prevented.
• ABC Healthcare will also be able to make a distinguished name in the market with the ability to serve patients accurately and timely (Menachemi, 2011).

There are certain negative impacts and areas of concern that will also be involved with the implementation of electronic healthcare application in ABC Healthcare. It is evident that the current business practices and operations will witness major transformations with the installation of the new system. The employees of the organization will be required to adapt to such changes which may be a time taking procedure. If there is enhanced time spent by the employees in getting used to the new system then the overall productivity and efficiency levels may be negatively impacted. The use of electronic business schemes bring in various security risks along with them. These may in turn cause legal obligations and regulatory issues for the organization.

Changes in the Infrastructure 

The infrastructural changes will be required to be done in the organization with the implementation of the following:

• Deployment of a Local Area Network (LAN) and Wide Area Network (WAN) with enhanced network bandwidth so that the employees and stakeholders of the ABC Healthcare may utilize the Electronic Healthcare Application.
• The technical tools and hardware, such as computer systems and peripherals along with the operating systems and frameworks will be needed to be installed in the organization.
• The data and server rooms will be needed to be developed for the installation of the database server, web server, exchange mail server, and file servers.
• The communication and networking framework will be modified and there will be Wi-Fi routers required to be installed across the organization.
• Tele-conferencing mediums and utilizes will be required to be implemented in the organization as the medical professionals will interact with the patients using the same.

Migration Plan

Purpose 

The main purpose of the plan is to list out the processes and methods that will be used to implement the electronic healthcare application in ABC Healthcare and the steps in migration of the existing services & data to the e-business platform.

Migration Methodology

The methodology that will be utilized in giving shape to all of the migration processes and activities will be phased methodology. It is the methodology in which there will be various phases involved in the migration process. Each of these phases will be carried out one after the other and there will be activities included under each phase.

Phases in Migration

Initiation Phase

The setting up and execution of the e-health framework that has been proposed must start with the examination of the features of the e-business display. The e-business framework that will be followed for this situation will be Business to Consumer (B2C). The practicality investigation of the e-business application regarding the framework should be done on the specialized and operational perspectives. The similarity of the framework being proposed should likewise be finished with whatever is left of the specialized tools being utilized as a part of the healthcare organization (Jamali and Oveisi, 2016).

Planning Phase

The following stage might be the arranging stage in which the prerequisites of the e-health framework must be archived based on the business case and the aftereffects of the plausibility ponder. There should be information gathering techniques completed with the goal that the prerequisites are effectively characterized. The arranging stage should likewise contain the estimation of the calendar for the plan, improvement, and sending of e-health framework alongside the assurance of its expenses. Anticipating the dangers, correspondence components, and assets would be done in this stage with the goal that the movement is done adeqautely.

Execution Phase

The e-health framework will be planned and created in this period of the transition procedure. These exercises will be done simultaneously with the migration tasks and activities. The e-health framework will incorporate the data and informational indexes related with the ABC Healthcare organization and the patients (Rose, 2013). The coordination of the current and new administrations will be done alongside that of the health monitoring tools and gear.

Control Phase

The monitoring and control of the processes involved in the project will be necessary to ensure that the final release is free from defects and any of the deviations from the initial set of requirements.

• System Integration Tests: The functional aspects of the electronic healthcare application will be determined in this testing process. The original requirements will be used to verify and validate the functionalities (Baresi and Pezze, 2006).
• Performance Tests: There will be numerus patients that will simultaneously access the electronic healthcare application. Similarly, there will be multiple medical professionals that will access the application at the same. The load will keep on fluctuating and the test cases in this category will determine the load balancing levels along with the response time for each activity (Indiver, 2016).   
• Security Tests: The application will be exposed to a lot of security risks and attacks. These tests will be done to determine and validate the readiness of the system to detect, prevent, control, and avoid such scenarios.  

The e-business capacity being created for ABC healthcare organization will be required to be monitored by the specialized individuals and administration. The audit and assessment methods must be executed to guarantee that there are no deviations and the transition is done accurately and smoothly. The execution of e-health framework will dispatch different changes for the therapeutic experts, patients associated with the organization, and the members of the staff. The nonattendance of a change administration design may prompt challenges in dealing with the more up to date set of tasks. Therefore, a change administration design will be required for the framework and the movement tasks. The arrangement might incorporate the subtle elements on strategy, arranging, administration, and support.

Closure Phase

This is the final phase that will be involved in the process of migration. It is the phase in which the migrated set of services and data will be viewed as integrated units and a round of final reviews will be done. The submission of a closure report will mark the end of the project.

Benefits of the E-Health System 

There are several patients that travel from far off placed to receive the medical treatment and care from their respective medical professionals. The cost of travel and transportation for such patients will be reduced and the electronic healthcare application will allow them to use remote health services. The total number of patients will be divided between the ones visiting the centers and the ones using electronic application to seek medical help and guidance. This will lower down the longer waiting hours and the burden on the medical professionals as well. The medical professionals will be able to treat more number of patients using the electronic platform. Also, the time involved in providing the care will also get reduced. The geographical and location constraints will be avoided and the organization will be able to treat the individuals in remote areas as well. The patient details and the other information associated with the medical procedures will be kept in centralized database in electronic form. As a result, there will be minimal chances of data loss and its leakage. The current problems, such as data duplication and mishandling will also be prevented. ABC Healthcare will also be able to make a distinguished name in the market with the ability to serve patients accurately and timely (Ohno-Machado, 2014).

Methods to Measure the Benefits 

The benefits that have been listed above will be required to be measured to understand the gaps in the estimated and actual values.

• Patients Comments & Feedback: The electronic healthcare application will have a feedback option that will allow the patients to provide their comments on the application and its features. The rating will also be asked by the system and it may be rated on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the best user experience. The positive feedback and comments will lead to increase number of patients using the system.  
• Profits and Revenues: The profits earned by the organization before and after the implementation of the e-application shall be assessed. The profits after the implementation must be higher.  
• Data Reports: The system will provide automated reports on the data sets. These reports will be extracted from the system to understand the data patterns and utilization of the same (Yanamadala et al., 2016).
• Market Shares: There shall be enhancement in the market shares of the organization after the implementation of the electronic healthcare application.  
• Number of Hits: The increased number of downloads of the applications from the online marketplace and total number of registered users will indicate enhanced benefits.  

Major Risks & Controls 

There are five distinct stages that have been recorded in the relocation design in the segment above. There are a couple of dangers and issues related with every one of these stages and the general venture also.

The essential arrangement of risks related with the framework is the security threats and assaults. The e-business ability as e-health framework will be actualized in the healthcare association as first of its sorts. This may prompt expanded number of security shortcomings and vulnerabilities that may go untreated. A portion of the security dangers and assaults that may come up as a result may incorporate malware assaults, dissent of administration assaults, information leakages, respectability infringement, and eavesdropping issues on the network (Taylor, 2015).

Each progression in the plan, advancement, organization, and transition stages will have a couple of basic issues that should be painstakingly done failing which there may be certain threats and risks that may emerge. The primary stage is the start-up stage in which the business case must be introduced to the venture group and the practicality investigation might be finished. Correspondence issues may come up in this stage as deficient correspondence or accessibility issues may set up a weaker base for the undertaking. There will be information accumulation, investigation, and arranging and estimation exercises completed in the second set of the tasks. The estimations will be required to be done sufficiently with the goal that the group prevails with regards to accomplishing the normal targets. The inadequate setting up of the time-frame and cost-benefit plan may prompt the issues of overrun or exceeding in the propelled stages. Additionally, non-adherence to the quality measures may likewise prompt client disappointment.

The third step in the process will be the execution stage in which the codes and outlines will be created for the e-business framework and the transition exercises will likewise be given shape for the services and for the informational collections. These exercises will include various specialized apparatuses and hardware. Issues and glitches in these instruments may prompt the deferral in the execution of the administrations and task exercises. Likewise, this stage will be to a great degree presented to the security dangers and assaults. The inner representatives in charge of doing with the advancement exercises will be given some critical information also. The improper treatment of the private and delicate informational indexes by the human assets may put the data in danger.

There may likewise be moral and legitimate issues in the execution and further strides all the while. The colleagues may not stick to the moral and lawful arrangements and standards (Adam, Aderet and Sadeh, 2007). There will likewise be different changes that the e-business capacity will get for the association. The adjustments in the underlying arrangement of necessities alongside the progressions presented for the restorative experts and different individuals from the staff will be required to be legitimately overseen. In the event of blunder, there might be dangers of scope inflation or reduced employee engagement that may come up.

The table below maps the risks listed above with the suitable response strategy.

Risk Name	Nature of the Risk	Risk Probability (1 to 5 with 5 being highest on the scale)	Risk Impact (1 to 5 with 5 being highest on the scale)	Risk Rank	Risk Treatment Strategy
Information Security Threats and Attacks	The risk will cause adverse implications and is therefore a negative risk.	5	5	25	The risk shall be responded with the treatment strategy as risk avoidance. There shall be advanced information security prevention, detection, and control tools utilized and integrated with the e-business framework that has been proposed.
Ineffective & Inadequate Communication	The risk will cause adverse implications and is therefore a negative risk.	4	3	12	The risk shall be responded with the treatment strategy as risk avoidance. The schedule of the conference and status meetings must be finalized and approved as the first step. The recurring meeting invitations shall also be sent out.
Schedule/Budget Overrun	The risk will cause adverse implications and is therefore a negative risk.	2	4	8	The risk shall be responded with the treatment strategy as risk avoidance. The gap analysis techniques, such as Earned Value Management and reviews by the senior management shall be carried out.
Technical Faults and Failures	The risk will cause adverse implications and is therefore a negative risk.	4	3	12	The risk shall be responded with the treatment strategy as risk transfer. There are third-parties involved in the project that would supply the technical tools. These parties must resolve the issues of technical faults and failures.
Scope Inflation	The risk will cause adverse implications and is therefore a negative risk.	2	5	10	The risk shall be responded with the treatment strategy as risk avoidance. The senior administration must carry out regular audits and the communication mechanisms with the project client shall focus upon any of the expected changes in the scope.
Ethical Issues	The risk will cause adverse implications and is therefore a negative risk.	1	5	5	The risk shall be responded with the treatment strategy as risk avoidance. The Project Manager must carry out ethical reviews and analysis. The issues of non-compliance must be reported immediately. The employees must also be provided with trainings on the ethical standards.
Legal Risks	The risk will cause adverse implications and is therefore a negative risk.	1	5	5	The risk shall be responded with the treatment strategy as risk avoidance. The Project Manager and legal representative must carry out legal reviews and analysis. The issues of non-compliance must be reported immediately. The employees must also be provided with trainings on the legal standards.
Reduced Resource Engagement	The risk will cause adverse implications and is therefore a negative risk.	2	5	10	The risk shall be responded with the treatment strategy as risk avoidance. There must be discussions and assessment processes carried out with the resources.

Conclusion

ABC Healthcare was set up as a not for profit healthcare organization in 2001. It provides health services, care, support and assistance to the patients and has developed several centres as well. The organization has decided to expand and involve e-business utilities in its architecture. It is recommended to develop and implement an e-health system for tele-health monitoring of the health of the patients. The move will have positive and negative impacts on the organization and it would be essential to handle the same. A phased approach shall be followed for the same.

References

Adam, A., Aderet, A. and Sadeh, A. (2007). Do Ethics Matter to E-Consumers?. Journal of Internet Commerce, 6(2), pp.19-34.

Baresi, L. and Pezze, M. (2006). An Introduction to Software Testing. Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science, 148(1), pp.89-111.

Indiver, S. (2016). New Soft Computing Techniques in the Software Testing. International Journal Of Engineering And Computer Science.

Jamali, G. and Oveisi, M. (2016). A Study on Project Management Based on PMBOK and PRINCE2. [online] Available at: https://dx.doi.org/10.5539/mas.v10n6p142 [Accessed 21 May 2018].

Menachemi, N. (2011). Benefits and drawbacks of electronic health record systems. Risk Management and Healthcare Policy, p.47.

Minichiello, V., Rahman, S., Dune, T., Scott, J. and Dowsett, G. (2013). E-health: potential benefits and challenges in providing and accessing sexual health services. BMC Public Health, 13(1).

Ohno-Machado, L. (2014). Electronic health record systems: risks and benefits. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 21(e1), pp.e1-e1.

Rose, K. (2013). A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)-Fifth Edition. Project Management Journal, 44(3), pp.e1-e1.

Taylor, R. (2015). Potential Problems with Information Security Risk Assessments. Information Security Journal: A Global Perspective, 24(4-6), pp.177-184.

Yanamadala, S., Morrison, D., Curtin, C., McDonald, K. and Hernandez-Boussard, T. (2016). Electronic Health Records and Quality of Care. Medicine, 95(19), p.e3332.