Technology and information capital's role in addressing Bethesda operational challenges

Technology and Information Capital play a significant role in aiding Bethesda with its operational challenges. There are specific examples of technology that could assist Bethesda in becoming more efficient and effective. For example, the organization needs to increase development revenue, and improve operations revenue. They can do this through maximizing reimbursements and decreasing the number of client vacancies. They can also do this through increasing their fundraising capacity. While Bethesda relies on government funding, funding goals have not been met for years, indicating a strong need to adapt to meet projected goals.

This means utilization of digital strategies and social media in order to reach younger donors. Identification of younger and new donors is essential and can be done using websites like Twitter, Snapchat, and Facebook to gain access to an untapped funding source. By using technology in the way of social media like smartphones, the organization can reach an otherwise underused fundraising source. It is a new way to also provide information to prospective clients by expanding the organizations reach and showing what it can do to help those with developmental disabilities.

In regards to maximizing reimbursements, technologies exist that can offer coding, patient collections, overhaul of information systems, and even audit protection to make everything run smoother. PracticeMax is a website offering smart solutions, providing maximum reimbursement to hospitals and other similar organizations. Bethesda could use a service like this to better understand key performance indicators available by financial class, location, and provider. They can even receive better monthly reporting on things like payments, visit totals, and charges.

Bethesda wants to develop a business analytics function that will support data-driven decision-making. By supporting and then transitioning to an electronic record system, it will offer timely and accurate reporting. This will lead to effective research, and improved It system performance.

B.

Recommendations for technology investment have to center on what the organization does and its goals. Bethesda serves over 2500 people throughout fourteen states. Their functions include group homes/apartments, assistive technology, case management, training, transportation, support living through adult foster care/host home, and support employment like job coaching and training. When CEO Mike Thirtle began his appointment in September 2014, assessment of the organization revealed a declining IT infrastructure as well as a poor leadership model. So therefore any investments have to be in the IT infrastructure such as transitioning from paper records to electronic records. The electronic record system has limited priority and should be given an opportunity to improve for the organization to avoid developmental shortfalls. Further and improved integration of an electronic record system will provide the organization with patient/client information faster and give those researching and performing in-organization assessments, the data needed to recognize and identify any problems or trends within the collected data.

The organization wants to give high priority to business analytics, but diminished priority to the electronic record system. This does not make any sense because the business analytics rely on easily obtainable information that can be derived from an electronic health record. By digitizing all data, analytics can be performed faster and easier as explained in a 2014 article. Without an EHR, the majority of healthcare data is contained in paper format. "Widespread EHR adoption sets the stage for electronic data collection and subsequent analysis. The next phase is to transform these data into actionable information packets that can be used to improve the delivery of healthcare" (Ward, Marsolo, & Froehle, 2014, p. 575).

The organization needs to adopt a fully integrated electronic records system. They need to transition any and all physical information into digital information. This will make the next step, business analytics, easier and faster to achieve. Electronic data and analytics go hand-in-hand.

C.

One of the issues mentioned is high staff turnover. Other issues were quality of service problems and bad decision making. There appears to be a lack of attention in recognizing and solving key challenges. While the assessment and letter points to bad leadership, IT deficiencies could also be a significant cause to many of the problems. By transitioning fully to an electronic record system, any needs can be readily addressed. Mike from Bethesda stated there are broken windows in need of repair. If the assessment was done and submitted electronically, this assessment could have been shown to the board of directors faster than if it is done through paper.