HIT System Planning This study examines the four phases of HIT systems, the key members of the steering committee and why they are important, and the importance of needs assessment. HIT is the abbreviation for Health Information Technology, which is stated to have four steps to adoption including; (1) planning; (2) selection; (3) implementation; and (4) maintenance. (American Medical Association, nd) This work examines specifically a long-term care facility adoption of Health Information Technology (HIT).

Preparation

Preparation includes daily operators that are changed by Health IT including provider workflow, nursing workflow, billing process, front desk process, scope/complexity of IT infrastructure and revenue/expense mix. The changes begin by defining the organization's needs in terms of what is needed by the HIT. Secondly, it is important to determine the organizational readiness and to gain the information concerning other individual's "experience and lessons learned while implementing and using health IT. Current processes should be documented during the planning phase with key tasks including:

(1) Asking everyone in the practice to list their daily roles and responsibilities and to identify tedious and reparative tasks and rate them according to their complexity (American Medical Association, nd);

(2) Make a master list of everything your practice currently does on a daily, weekly and monthly basis; use this list to evaluate the software.(American Medical Association, nd) (3) Calculate completion times for each task; understand which tasks could easily become electronic. (American Medical Association, nd) )

(4) Create diagrams of how information flows throughout your practice; and (5) Conduct a few model patient visits. Identify snags and slowdowns -- walk the charts through each handoff and document where modifications are needed (American Medical Association, nd).

(American Medical Association, nd) )
(4) Performs software configuration, hardware configuration, special projects such as interfaces (American Medical Association, nd); and (4) Remaining staff are key project stakeholders and should provide knowledge to the health IT plan and vision. They may be responsible for special tasks as required by the project plan (American Medical Association, nd).

The planning stage includes technology planning and capital planning. In order to minimize surprises, it is necessary to develop a "detailed budget outlining expenses in the following categories:

(1) Health IT software and related services (includes interfaces)

(2) hardware/network and related services;

(3) Internet labor expenses (time spent on training data-entry, etc.);

(4) temporary decline in provider productivity; and (5) financing expense (American Medical Association, nd) )

II. Selection

The second step in the process of adopting HIT is that of 'Selection' which involves the selection of a system that can be either 'formal' or 'informal' in nature.…