Workflow Models and the Systems Development Life Cycle Essay Assignment

Workflow Models and the Systems Development Life Cycle Essay Assignment Instructions

Scenario 4: Dr. Catherine is a physician in a Chicago hospital, Inner City Health. Additionally, she has a private practice. After she completes rounds at the hospital, she leaves to go to her private practice. Her office manager is busy managing the office and the employees. Dr. Catherine is experiencing some time constraints in managing her workload while attempting to provide top-quality care. On a daily basis at Inner City Hospital, she is provided with a list of patients to see and, recently, her nurse practitioner (NP) left because she moved out of the state. Due to growth, she would like to hire two new nurse practitioners. She has had some challenges with finding the right employee to fill the position. The job is posted and resumes have started to come in as well. Dr. Catherine would like to start interviewing candidates, but she does not know where to start and has not had any time to review the resumes. She also knows that an interview can take an hour or longer. She wants to develop a workflow to manage her patients in both locations and also allow some additional time to interview potential new employees. She wants to make a hiring decision carefully and make sure she hires the right NPs for the job. What workflow should she use to manage this process? What is an alternative workflow she could use? Please explain how the workflow can improve outcomes.

Briefly describe the case study you selected.

Explain the systems development life cycle present in the case.

Describe the workflow model that was used. Explain whether this workflow model is a good fit and why.

Explain how the clinical decision support system impacted workflow in the case.

Assess the role of the nurse informaticist in the case study and how the role could be beneficial to internal and external customers. (Customers external to health care organizations include patients, patients’ families and visitors, referring physicians, doctors’ offices, blood donors, and third-party payers. Internal customers include nurses, staff physicians and other professionals, students, trainees, employees, departments, and committees.)

Recommend an alternative workflow model that could be used in this scenario. Explain how it improves patient safety and/or outcomes. 

Support your recommendation by synthesizing and integrating at least two outside resources and two of the provided Resources.

Workflow Models and the Systems Development Life Cycle Essay Assignment References:

Tilley, S. (2020). Systems analysis and design (12th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage.

Chapter 1, “Introduction to Systems Analysis and Design”

Chapter 2, “Analyzing the Business Case” (pp. 45–70)

Eisenstein, E. L., & Butler, K. A. (2015). Health informatics-enabled workflow redesign and evaluation

Links to an external site.. Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, 208, 131–136. doi:10.3233/978-1-61499-488-6-131

Thompson, C., Kell, C., Shetty, R., & Banerjee, D. (2016). Clinical workflow redesign leveraging informatics improves patient outcomes

Links to an external site.. Heart & Lung: The Journal of Acute and Critical Care, 45(4), 380–381. doi:10.1016/j.hrtlng.2016.05.025

Workflow Models and the Systems Development Life Cycle Essay Assignment Sample Answer

Workflow Models and System Development Life Cycle

The management of time and resources in healthcare significantly affects the quality of patient care. With the growing demand of patient footfall, health institutions must ensure they maintain and improve care standards, by optimizing on workflow models. Workflow models are used in healthcare to reduce patient waiting time, improve on-time resource management and enhance clinical workflow. This positively impacts the quality and safety of patient care, and enhance clinical operations. This paper aims to review a case study and establish the workflow model and SDLC presented in the scenario. In addition, it explain alternative workflow models that could be applied to the scenario, the impact of clinical decision support system on workflow and explains the role of a nurse informaticist in the scenario.

Description of the Scenario

The scenario for the assignment is about Dr. Catherine, who works as a physician in a Chicago hospital, has her private practice where she goes and attends to other patients when she finishes her rounds at the hospital. Dr. Catherine is facing time constraint in managing her workload at the hospital while ensuring she provides top-quality care to her patients. Recently, her workload has increased because her nurse practitioner left as she relocated to another state. Due to increased patient footfall, she would like to hire two new nurse practitioners to meet the growing demand. The job was posted and resumes have started streaming in, but Dr. Catherine has not had the time to review the resumes. In addition, she would like to start interviews with potential candidates which she wants to develop a workflow system to help her manage her patients in both locations, and create time for the interviews.

ORDER HUMAN-WRITTEN ESSAYS 

The System Development Life-Cycle Present in the Case Study

In the case study, the stages of the system development life cycle presented are planning and analysis phase. According to Ergasheva & Kruglov, (2020), the planning phase involves establishing the basis for a system and the needs that a system should address. In the scenario, the planning phase is presented when Dr. Catherine identifies plans to develop a workflow that will help her manage her patients at both locations and also help create time to conduct the interviews. The requirement analysis phase involves converting the information required in the planning phase into clear requirements (Ergasheva & Kruglov, 2020). The requirement analysis phase is also presented as Dr. Catherine identifies there is a challenge in managing her time and workload at both facilities and hiring new nurse practitioners.

The Workflow Model Used in the Scenario

The workflow model that is used in the scenario is the parallel workflow model. Workflow models are important in management as they enable the management of work processes and tasks. As such, Dr. Catherine uses the parallel workflow model where different tasks can be performed concurrently. In this case, Dr. Catherine is managing patients in her facility and at her private facility, her manager is also handling other tasks. This model can be applied by Dr. Catherine to help in the recruitment process, where she will have her manager review the resumes received and then share with her potential candidates for the position.

Impact of Clinical Decision Support System on Workflow

Clinical decision support systems are usually adopted and implemented in healthcare organizations to guide medical decisions by providing adequate information before a decision is made. This impacted workflow as it enhances patient safety, clinical management, and administrative functioning. Sutton et al. (2020) claim that the application of CDSS in patient care reduces the risk of medication errors, which positively impacts the quality and safety of patient care. In this case, Dr. Catherine would use the CDSS to make decisions related to her patients. The CDSS also enhances clinical management as it ensures that procedures and guidelines are strictly followed. In addition, the system allows alerts physicians to follow up with patients. In this case, Dr. Catherine can follow up with her patients in her private practice to ensure that they receive quality patient care.

Role of Nurse Informaticist

In the scenario provided, the role of a nurse informaticist is to help develop a workflow system that will enable Dr. Catherine take care of her patients in both locations and schedule her time for interviews with potential nurse practitioners. The role of the nurse informaticist is to guide through the process of developing and implementing a system that will enhance time management and clinical workflow. In as study by Thompson et al. (2016), physicians collaborated with informaticists to design, and new workflow systems which supports  that a nurse informaticist role will be to help in developing the new system. Her role in helping to develop a new system could be beneficial for patients and employees. This is because, when the new system is developed, Dr. Catherine can manage her patients in her private practice and the hospital. In addition, developing the new system will also help in the recruitment and training process of the new nurse practitioner which will also speed up the hiring process.

Alternative Workflow Model to Use with the Scenario

The alternative workflow model that could have been used for the scenario is the task-level workflow, whereby employees are provided with a detailed understanding of specific tasks that must be conducted before handoffs. This model allows the nurses to understand the specific tasks they must perform (Peleg & González-Ferrer, 2014). In this case. Dr. Catherine will have a deeper understanding of the specific tasks she needs to undertake when taking care of her patients and also through the interview process. This will help her provide quality care while also managing time through the interview process.

References

Ergasheva, S., & Kruglov, A. (2020). Software development life cycle early phases and quality metrics: A systematic literature review.
Journal of Physics: Conference Series
,
1694
(1), 012007. https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/1694/1/012007

Peleg, M., & González-Ferrer, A. (2014). Guidelines and workflow models.
Clinical Decision Support
, 435–464. https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-12-398476-0.00016-6

Sutton, R. T., Pincock, D., Baumgart, D. C., Sadowski, D. C., Fedorak, R. N., & Kroeker, K. I. (2020). An overview of clinical decision support systems: Benefits, risks, and strategies for Success.
Npj Digital Medicine
,
3
(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-020-0221-y

Thompson, C., Kell, C., Shetty, R., & Banerjee, D. (2016). Clinical workflow redesign leveraging informatics improves patient outcomes.
Heart & Lung
,
45
(4), 380–381. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrtlng.2016.05.025