Operational Issues of it Department Nhs Organization

Operational issues of IT Department NHS Organization UK The objective of this report is to provide a proposal to reduce the IT operational costs. National Health Service (NHS) is a biggest healthcare service provider in the UK, and the organization delivers both primary and secondary healthcare since its formation. The UK government major objective for forming NHS is to provide the affordable and quality healthcare delivery for all social class in the UK.

To achieve its objective, the government has implemented the IT project to improve the service delivered by the organization. Despite the implementation of the IT project to deliver the quality healthcare delivery for the UK population, there is an operational issues within the IT department. The external service providers are still delivering the IT services, which has been translated into the high operations costs. The report provides several recommendations to decline the operation costs within the IT department.

One of the recommendations is to increase the number of IT staff within the IT department in order to transfer the service that the external service providers deliver to the in-house team. Moreover, the report suggests that NHS should increase the level of training of IT staff to make them more competent to deliver the IT service. The report also suggests that there should be an IT training for all NHS staff to reduce the burden of work of the staff of IT department.

The time frame for the implementation plan will be 3 years and the budget for the plan will be £1.5 million. Operational issues of IT Department NHS Organization UK Introduction National Health Service (NHS) is a UK public funded health organization. The organization was launched in 1948 to deliver the primary and secondary health care service. As being revealed in Fig 1, the primary healthcare delivered by NHS consists of GP practice, optician health service, pharmacy, walk-in center and NHS direct.

The secondary healthcare consists of care trust, mental health trusts, emergence & care trusts and NHS trusts. Since the formation of NHS in 1948, the NHS has grown to become the largest public funded health organization in the world. Presently, NHS employs approximately 1.7 million people by which half are clinically qualified. However, NHS England is the biggest healthcare provider in the UK catering for approximately 52 million people where 3 million people are treated by the NHS England every week.

Fig 1: NHS primary and secondary Healthcare While NHS has many objectives to achieve, one of the major focuses of the organization is to "put information at the heart of decision making to improve the quality and standards of care and to increase efficiency in the English NHS and adult social care sector." (National Health Service 2009 P. 4).

More importantly, NHS aims to reduce the burden of data collection and ensure that adequate resources is devoted to the storage, collection, analysis and dissemination of data and make positive changes regarding the clinical services. To achieve this objective, the UK government approved the information technology (IT) project for NHS to deliver efficient clinical service to UK population.

Despite the aim of the organization to use the IT to deliver high quality healthcare service to UK population, the IT department within NHS faces several challenges in the effective operation of IT policies. Objective of this report is to investigate the issues related to the IT operation management within NHS IT department and identify the challenges facing the NHS IT department for effective implementation of IT policies within the organization. The report also provides recommendations on the method to reduce costs associated with the IT service implementation.

Internal and External context of the problem NHS information technology (IT) is one of the largest IT program in the world, and the project expenditure has reached approximately £12 billion. Major drivers for the implementation of the project are to enhance the effective data storage and minimize the medical errors. More importantly, the implementation of information system within the NHS is to support patient care. Despite the major benefits derived from the project, the program is facing major challenges.

Evaluation of the NHS IT program reveals that operational inefficiencies has been the major set back leading to the rising in the operation costs of the NHS IT implementation.(Hendy Fulop, Reeves, et al. 2007). While the success of NHS IT operations relies on the proper functioning of information systems within the clinical practices, however, common high costs within the IT profile has been the major concern making the organization to become sometime short of cash.

Hackney & McBride (2003) point out that the major problems leading the challenges in the NHS IT operation has been attributed to the lack effective management within the organization. Prior to the IT project implementation, the use of IT is limited, and where the system existed, the technology was archaic, incompatible and diverse. Lack of effective IT system brought about the full fledge implementation of IT infrastructure.

While IT system is a promising project for the NHS, lack of qualified and experienced IT staff hampers the benefits that the organization would have derived from the project. Within the two or three hospitals being managed by NHS, people with non-IT discipline were drawn to become IT managers. In one of the hospital, a nursing manager was asked to manage a large nursing management information system. Additionally, information systems were procured by the government direction without an adequate understanding of their intended purpose.

There are also issues related to the operation strategy of the program. The NHS IT department is suffering the acute shortage of staff making the organization to outsource its IT services to the third parties IT providers to manage and operate the existing IT system. "IT services were mostly provided through an outsourcing arrangement with Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC).

This made use of contractual terms and conditions negotiated between the Department of Health and CSC and delivered via a "leveraged" arrangement under which the IC could buy services, on a per account basis, making use of pre-negotiated resources, both technical and human." (National Health Service 2009 P. 5). Typically, the issue related to managing the IT service within the NHS has been one of the challenges facing NHS managing capacity.

Analysis of the issues has led to unacceptable delay to achieve response time for each service request within the organization and high volume of the waiting queue to track service request. National Health Service (NHS) the long-term objective is to integrate effective Information Technology (IT) systems for the effective operation of the organization. However, the search for effective information and management within the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK depends on the effective implementation of IT policies.

However, if technology declines in value, there is a danger that the effective data collection exercise may not be operationalized into the effective management information system and be translated into the effective patient care. Part of the challenges also comes in the way management treats the IT issues and its operation strategy. (Willcocks & Mark 2009). Since 1998, NHS executive set a target to have an electronic heath record in 2005, however, with the complexity and politics surrounding the project, only 3% of the project reached its completion in 2002.

Major factors leading to the delay is the inadequate setting and financial pressures elsewhere within the organization. While the NHS IT project is the largest IT public project ever undertaken within the UK, problem of achieving information flow, and to resolve confidential issues have been the cornerstone factors leading to the 30% of the program failure. IT implementation failure experienced at NHS Wessex Regional Health Authority ended the government to lose taxpayer money of approximately £43 million.

With failure experienced at Wessex regional project, National Audit Office is currently evaluating whether the project is likely provide good value for money. Jeffcott & Johnson (2006) argue that management lack effective implementation of risks management within the IT department. Effective IT operations require the organization to evaluate the current approach to risk management of new technology. NHS organization lacks effective risk management strategy to implement modern technology. Despite the implementation of the new technology, the organization still faces clinical litigation for clinical negligence. Boddy et al.

(2009) point to the external context of the IT problem within the NHS organization. The authors reveal that power politics at the central government is the contributing factor to the problem facing NHS. Power is the ability to influence the others to act in a particular way. In a way to limit the contribution of the IT staff within the NHS IT department, the central government limits funding for the recruitment of qualified IT staff and training of existing IT staff. Hendy et al.

(2007) supports this argument by pointing out that Ministers and top civil servants have acknowledged that NHS is experiencing the budget deficit making the NHS trusts to prioritize IT department within the NHS objectives. Typically, NHS has been affected by the power politics from the center to the extent that the organization is facing financial deficits making the trusts to face financial difficulties. Typically, the problem has been translated to the problems affecting the IT department.

Statement and analysis of the problem The implementation of IT practice within NHS is to enhance major rationalization of NHS, which involves gathering patient's information to be accessible to health practitioners and to enhance development of huge and centralized IT system. However, several years after the IT initiation, there is a still untidy existing arrangement within the IT department. There has been additional complexity and certainty with regards to the NHS information system environment.

While the NHS has claimed to make a record of accomplishment of the IT within NHS organization, many medical practitioner and nurses still make limited use of IT infrastructures. Typically, NHS was formed in 1948 to provide health service for rich and poor and eliminate the priority of the health service based on the social class. Despite the vision employed for establishing the organization, there has been several quality failure associated to the implementation of healthcare delivery.NHS provided poor performances compared to the international benchmark.

There was a growing case of bacteria infection. The waiting list within the NHS hospitals continues to grow daily. Comparably, the patients waiting list to Europe average is still high. While there is a claim that the waiting lists has dropped within the NHS hospitals, there are general opinion that some hospitals are tampering with the figure. More importantly, NHS has not been able to pass a quality control test.

To overcome the problem, NHS has implemented an IT policy, and the IT has been considered as the strategic assets that could be employed to enhance organizational efficiency. Despite the implementation of IT within the organization, lack of funding to develop in-house IT staff has contributed to the decline in the efficient use of IT system. Typically, priority was not given to IT in all departments. Operational problems still exists within the NHS organization with lack of initiative to modernize the existing IT systems.

Willcocks & Mark (2009) argue that part of the problem has been the method NHS implements management and information policies. The key factor is to put pressure on manager to achieve target through the short-term program and annual performances review. The need to deliver results within the short time has prevented managers to adopt appropriate time scale for implementation.

More importantly, the long-term objectives of NHS is to provide the immediate needs of the IT service at the district and regional level, however, the IT policies is still being controlled by the regional body. Typically, many district managers still have little experience with the implementation of IT uses for the organizational efficiency. There is also some skepticism about the ability of some new computer system to deliver the required results. Sometimes, the skepticism is as a result of the experience of the use of some compute system.

At regional level, there is a wide direct involvement with the use of computer system and there is a lack of training for IT staff except hand-on-experience and basic instruction on how to use computer within the IT department. Typically, regional level confuses the strategy with implementation, and to implement effective IT practice, NHS needs to outsource the IT service to IT service providers and the issue has been translated to huge operational costs.

Based on the problem identified with reference to NHS IT policies which has been translated into high operation costs, this report provides the proposal for a workable recommendation and realistic implementation plan for NHS IT policies. Proposal(s) for workable recommendation(s) and realistic implementation plan. Analysis of the NHS problem reveals that the organization has focused on the operation strategy to hire the third party service providers to manage the IT department, and the issues has led to the rising costs of the IT operations.

More importantly, the report identifies that there is an increase in the costs of managing and operating the IT operations within the organizations. Based on the problems identified, the reports provides the proposal to make use of the fewer third party service providers in order to decline costs and at the same time increase the number of in-house IT staff to manage, maintain and implement the required IT system. Based on the problem identification, the report provides the following recommendations.

First, NHS needs to improve the IT knowledge of in-house IT staff. One of the reasons that make the organization to rely on the third party service provider is that the in-house staff does not possess the required skills to manage the NHS IT infrastructures. Typically, the problem is translated to an unacceptable delay in the response time for each of the health service requested and high volume of waiting queue.

More importantly, there is a need to improve the level of efficiencies of IT staff as well increase the services provided by IT staff to improve the services provided by the department to an acceptable standard. There are several strategies that the organization could employ to achieve this aim. The training should be implemented to enhance the knowledge of IT staff and the training should span for twelve months.

This method is to reduce the NHS reliance on the third part service providers in order to decline costs of managing the IT operations within the department. Apart from increasing the training of the in-house IT staff, there is a need to increase the number of IT staff to improve the service provided by the organization to an acceptable standard. There is also a need to transfer the service provided by the external service providers to the in-house team member.

The strategy will assist the organization to transfer the service provided by the IT service provides to in-house team. Essentially, the NHS IT project is one of the largest IT project in world, and to manage the IT infrastructures to an acceptable standard, there is a need to employ required number of IT staff. Thus, the organization needs to hire more IT staff to manage the organization IT infrastructure. Other recommendation is to relocate the IT hardware from Maidstone to Tavelyan.

Major aim to implement this initiative is to build a new server room and secure data center at Harrogate. There is also a need to expand the Contact Center to provide the same Helpdesk that the external service providers are currently delivering. Additionally, there is a need to utilize specialist suppliers for the encryption solution of the corporate hardware. Knowledge of the hardware encryption should be transferred to in-house to ensure that NHS does not rely on these specialists suppliers in the future.

Furthermore, the organization should install network monitoring and management to assist the in-house team to provide better service as well as reducing the outrage. The organization will enjoy several benefits from the implementation of this policy. First, NHS will be able to reduce costs of managing and implementing the IT infrastructure. Additionally, the recommendation will increase the speed and flexibility the in-house team delivers the medical report, and the system will reduce the medical errors and organizational efficiency.

More importantly, the new system will remove the constraint in delivering the integrated IT service. Internal ownership of organization IT assets will increase high level of commitment and the system will make the organization closer to customers. The system will also improve alignment between IT systems and operation need. The system will also enhance faster problem solving as well as having ability to resolve the difficult issues quickly. More importantly, the organization needs to improve the IT training for medical staff.

Provision of adequate IT training for all medical staff and para-medical staff will reduce the workload burden for IT staff in the IT department. Warm et al. (2009) argue that the use of computer and its application has become a cornerstone of modern society. Current estimates suggest that large proportion of medical staff working with NHS do not possess essential IT skills to work at a reasonable standard level.

While the suitable and reliable computer hardware and software is critical for the proper functioning of IT implementation, however, there is a need to possess requires level of skills to make use of computer software to deliver high level of service. Thus, there is a need to provide training for medical staff to make use of medical software within the organization.

The report suggests that NHS design the following training for all NHS staff: Basic IT concepts Use of computer and file management Word processing Spreadsheets Databases Presentations Communication and Information Implementation of the program will empower NHS staff to make use of computer towards managing of chronic diseases. To make these recommendations to be realistic, NHS will need to allocate a budget for the implementation. The report proposes a total of £1.5 million for the implementation plan, and the implementation plan should take 3 years.

Implementation Plan Plan Time Scale Use of specialized encryption supplier for the implementation of media encryption to ensure that there is a secured file transfer through electronic means. The program w should be run for approximately 15 months to allow in-house team to possess the required skills for the media encryption. Increase the number of in-house team to enhance faster delivery of IT service. The time frame to achieve this objective will be approximately 12 months. Training of the in-house team to provide the same service provided by the external service providers.

The plan will run for appropriate 3 years since the IT in-house will always go for short courses. Relocation of the IT hardware from Maidstone to Tavelyan. The aim of the project is to build a new a secure server. The program will take approximately 3 months. Expansion of the Contact Center to provide the same Helpdesk that the external service providers currently deliver. Program will take 4 months. Training of all NHS medical staff The program will take 12 months Training of all non-medical staff This program will also 12 months.

A need to conduct a full audit of NHS software, hardware and network system. Based on the findings of the audit committee, the organization will improve of the hardware on software configuration. The audit system will take approximately 4 months. Develop an information architecture using information asset modeling and.