NY Department of Health Technological Solutions

Technological Solutions for the NY Department of Health

Instructions: Introduction

The (New York) NY Department of Health is one of the public organizations under the New York government dedicating in delivering high quality healthcare for the NY residents. Before 2007, the health department used the manual method to process patents' records, which was not only prone to medical errors, the manual method was also time consuming leading to high cost of operations. In 2007, the NY department of health introduced a new information technology to enhance quality health care delivery and reduce the cost of operations.

The objective of this paper explore the new IT tools introduced by the NY health department.

Description of NY department of Health

Increasing competitions among non-profit organizations and continuous demand for the innovative services have made large numbers of governments and nonprofit organizations to consider integrating the innovative technology to deliver quality services to their stakeholders. In essence, IT (information technology) has been identified an effective technological tools that can assist public organizations to pursue their missions, and deliver quality public services for citizens. The New York government is a member of the GFOA ("Government Finance Officers Association") (Sehga, 2015 p 1), which is one of the major non-profit organizations in United States and Canada dedicated in managing the governments for the public benefits. The GFOA has more than 16,000 members from state, local, and provincial governments in the United States and Canada, and committed in advancing and developing the leading fiscal practices and strategies for the public organizations. One of the goals of the New York government is to provide affordable and quality health for people with at a reduced cost. In other words, the NY Department of Health is dedicated in promoting health for all New York residents. To achieve this goal, the NY government has integrated the IT tools to enhance health intervention across the New York City. (Eskridge, French, & McThomas, 2012). In 2007, the NY department of health has established the office for the information technology transformation to deliver the quality health care for the NY residents. The essence of IT department is to coordinate the health IT programs to enhance health affordability as well as improving the health outcomes for New Yorkers. Since the introduction of IT tools to speed healthcare delivery, the government has approved fund allocations in different fiscal years for the implementation of the IT infrastructures.

Description of the current Budgeting and Finance Situations positively affected by Technological Solutions

Since 2006, the NY Health Department has invested in the IT tools to enhance statewide health information systems as well as enhancing quality, efficiency, safety, and affordable healthcare system. The total investment for the health information systems in the NY Health Department is above $840 million since 2007. In 2014 budget system, the New York government approved $1.2 Billion to health, however, $75 million was devoted to HIT (health information technology). The 2015 budget plan increases the spending of HIT by $55 million. A $10 million is also allocated to the development of the database system for the medical bill records.

However, Sehga (2015) points out that the New York government allocates $45 million for the development of health information record in the 2015 -2016 budget, which will allow patients and healthcare providers to access the electronic health records. Allocation of the budget has made the New York health department to develop health information systems, which will be beneficial to both healthcare providers and patients.

Description of Current Technology of NY Department of Health

New York health department has built high level information architecture using the internet model to enhance a quality of healthcare delivery. The IT infrastructure consists of P2P (Peer-to-per) technology with the distribution architecture. The SHIN-NY information system is developed using the SOA (service-oriented architecture), and implemented through the web services and operating system using the ESB (enterprise service bus). Since 2008, SHIN-NY ("Statewide Health Information Network of New York") uses a secure network system to share medical records electronically. The security protocols have assisted the healthcare providers to exchange and access patients' record electronically in a secured platform. Moreover, the EHR (electronic health records) is also integrated in the SHIN-NY to allow healthcare providers to search for health information in the system. The systems also allow the providers to exchange patient's health information.

The goal of the SHIN-NY is to convert the healthcare system from paper to paperless system using electronic systems. Moreover, the system allows the application of information highway that allows clinicians and patients to make a timely decision to reduce the medical errors, and improve care coordination. Although, the SHINY-NY is a scalable technology that can enhance quality of healthcare delivery, nevertheless, additional technological solutions are still essential for the NY Department of Health IT architecture.

Additional Technological Solutions for effectiveness and efficiencies of Budgeting and Finance for New York Health Department

This paper suggests that the New York health department should integrate the CPM (Corporate Performance Management) systems that is currently being used by private organizations with the current IT systems. The CPM systems are able to merge data from ERP (enterprise resource planning) to enhance performing planning capabilities, and organization efficiencies. One of the benefits of the CPM is its ability to deliver budget planning and forecasting. Typically, the CPM can be used to develop annual budgets, make a long-term plans and formulate workflow technology in order to manage budget planning and formulation. "The planning component of CPM also supports linking financial plans or operational plans." (Sehga, 2015 p 12). The CPM is also effective to carry out the financial planning and performance measurement analysis. The CPM is able to perform query and report data. The OLAP (online analytical processing) is the underlying technology of CPM. Moreover, the OLTP (online transaction processing) is another technology for the CPM that can assist in facilitating the payroll and accounting systems.

The paper recommends that the NY department of health should integrate the CPM into the existing IT infrastructures to produce a multi-dimensional health information systems. Essentially, the multidimensional cube will allow application delivery in a wide geographical region. Thus, the paper suggests the integration of relational data structure to enhance transactional processing efficiency and analytical capability. Moreover, this paper recommends that the NY health department should take the advantages of the CPM and relational database structure to develop budget planning and forecasting since these technologies are designed to carry out a complex mathematical calculations, and useful to formulate budgeting. It is essential to realize that a public organization such as the NY department of health deals with different categories of data when preparing and implementing budgeting. Since public sector budgeting cut across different departments, the technology that allows the technology budgeting solution is very essential for this type of organization. Thus, the NY health department will enjoy huge benefits by integrating the CPM with the new IT system.