7055SOH – Leading in Complex Health Systems Assignment Sample 2024
Introduction
The present health care system is getting complex, and thus it is increasing the need to adopt the right leadership and managing practices (Aldughayfiq & Sampalli, 2021). The rise of the pandemic has changed the way an industry operates, and the healthcare sector is also not untouched by this. The world is getting more and more technology-driven. Digital technologies are influencing daily lives as well as operations.
Due to the emergence of the outbreak, the health care sector was forced to adopt the technologies to deliver efficient patient care. In such a scenario, e-prescription can be said as one of the recent and advanced innovations of the industry. The concept of e-prescription has been emerged to enhance clinical effectiveness, bettering patient experience, and ensure patient safety.
This also reduced the costs for the patients. E-prescribing is a technological framework that allows medical practitioners and other physicians to send prescriptions in electronic format. This management proposal explains the proposed innovation and includes an implementation plan.
The proposal also consists of the critical relevant management and leadership concepts. The report assesses the significance and application of system leadership, organizational culture, and change management model within the health care system.
Proposed innovation
Impact of the innovation and user benefits and cost benefits
An E-prescribing system can be an electronic reference handbook (Soni, Nagpal & Mittal, 2020). The doctors can create and refill prescriptions for individual patients, view the history of patients, and manage medications. It can also integrate with any electronic medical record system. The e-prescription reduces the chances of errors that can be generated because of illegible faxes and bad handwriting.
The computer-generated are legally accepted ways of prescribing medicine. This innovation is proven and effective, and this can be justified by stating that the pandemic period. The outbreak of covid-19 has highly impacted the country, and in such a scenario, the health care organization was required to take some steps.
During a pandemic, the concept of a prescription helped keep the health care workers safe (Ellner et. al. 2015). When the pandemic hit the country, the number of outpatient care visits increased by about 60%. This enhanced the risk of getting affected with coronavirus.
The workers of the Healthcare organization were on the first line of the battle, and dealing with hundreds of patients was very risky. Thus, e-prescribe eliminated the need for extra visits whenever a patient requires refills or prescriptions. This concept keeps the face-to-face interaction between doctors and patients to a minimum extent, thus keeping both parties safe and healthy.
With the rise in a covid-19 pandemic, telehealth experienced a boost in popularity (McNamara & Teeling, 2021). The adoption of telemedicine enhanced the provision of Health Services irrespective of the practice’s specialization. This enabled the doctors to consult the patients safely, monitor them regularly, and provide superior Quality Services to numerous people in remote locations. E prescribed can be referred to as an integral part of the 360-degree telehealth package.
The health care organization mainly concentrated on minimizing the stress level for the patients as it was an essential part of healthcare (Frenk, 2015). In the time of pandemic covid-19, anxiety influenced the people’s life quality and interfered with the various course of many treatments. E- Prescription minimizes the contact, relieving some stress and keeping the patient on the right treatment path.
This proposed innovation has several potential positive impacts on the Healthcare organization (Battles & Strauss, 2016). For instance, it allows the provider to access a patient’s prescription benefit information and prescription history. The e-prescription is easily driven by software that can electronically send the prescription to the pharmacy.
When a prescriber sees a patient, the individual can use their e-prescribing software from any handheld device. This software routes the medication through a hub and then onto the pharmacy. It is as quick as sending an email, and often sometimes, prescriptions are waiting for the patient before they even arrive at the pharmacy. This software also allows for the pharmacy to process a refill request to the prescriber electronically.
This is the same process as a new prescription, and it is only reversed. The pharmacy requests a refill, which can be seen and responded to by the prescriber in their respective software (Vassilakopoulou & Marmaras, 2017). Hence, the process of prescribing includes provider, eRx or software, hub, PBM, pharmacy, and patient.
This innovation helps increase patient safety, which is very important in the period of covid-19. E-prescription improves Patient Safety by decreasing medication errors as well as expanding prescription legibility. It further reduces the risk of readmission. 20% of hospital readmissions have been traced to adverse drug events.
Thus, with the help of developing safety features, including duplicate therapy alerts and allergy alerts, adverse drug events can be significantly reduced. It offers several advantages to pharmacies, patients, and prescribers in helping everyone in the involved process. In addition to this, the doctors and Specialists’ prescriptions written on the paper are small and easy to misplace.
This adds work for the medical offices because they must write or call the prescriptions and the pharmacy (KILIÇ, BOSTAN & ŞAHİN, 2016). The proposed innovation of e-prescribing facilitates the medication to be sent directly to the pharmacy. In this way, patients do not have to keep track of another piece of paper.
Through this concept or proposed innovation, it has improved the accuracy and efficiency of the healthcare organization. The significant outcome of implementing this innovation has the potential to reduce the dispensing errors and incidence of medication (Dyb& Warth, 2019).
On the other side, the disadvantages also need to be noted—for example, the poor design of features of the software and any disruptions in the pharmacy. The Healthcare organization is required to consider these to ensure the consistent efficiency of the innovation (Mehmood, Mehmood & Song, 2019). The prescription can reduce medical errors.
This will provide a direct and secure electronic interface that facilitates clinicians and pharmacists to interact directly. It can further reduce the verbal communications and any workflow interruptions concerned with the clarification of prescriptions. This is more reliable and safe as it streamlines the process. During the pandemic, when the patient was unable to visit the hospital, this innovation was beneficial.
Considering the systems perspective, the patient or user benefits through this innovation are shorter pharmacy waiting times and lower prescription costs. The prescribers can access the formulary information and patient’s eligibility and pick the prescription with the lowest price.
The users will get benefit from e-prescriptions of compliance and education materials (Kiljan et. al. 2018). The patients will be more likely to pick up the prescription which has been re-sent than any paper prescription.
It will also increase the safety of patients as it will reduce the errors due to illegible handwriting and set alerts for dangerous drug interactions. On the other side, the providers will also gain access to several advantages through this proposed innovation. It will lower down the cost and keep on hand tools, including dosing calculators.
It will support faster workflows as an electronic response to refill the request easily and quickly. Prescription tools are recently available, but not most medical practices for Healthcare organizations are using these (AlQattan & Mirzal, 2018). However, it can be said that the e-prescribing software’s are cost-effective for various practices with the Rapid return on investment in larger practices.
Implementation plan
An implementation plan can also be defined as a strategic plan that includes strategy, process, and action. It depicts the steps which are required to use to attain shared objectives. Leaders and managers of the Healthcare organization play a leading role in implementing the proposed innovation (Nikou & Gallos, 2020). It can be said that the leaders and managers of the Healthcare organization are essential individuals in guiding and supporting this implementation.
| Outline objectives and goals | The first step of this implementation plan is outlining the goals as well as objectives. The primary aim of this implementation plan is to implement the proposed innovation, which is e-prescription within the Healthcare organization (Berler& Apostolakis, 2017).
this objective is essential for the Healthcare organization to cure and treat the patients effectively. Further, it will also help in increasing the accuracy and efficiency of the workflow. The establishment of e-prescription or innovation within the organization will help attain the overall organizational Vision and Mission to develop the objectives and achieve them. System leadership is the most appropriate form of leadership concept. System leadership can be said as the set of capacities and skills that any organization or individual can use to support the process of system-level change (Bennis & Thomas, 2020). The application of system leadership within the Healthcare organization will combine collaborative leadership and Systems insight to mobilize the innovation and actions across a decentralized network (Kivekäs et. al. 2016). |
| Assign responsibilities | The system leaders can assign the roles and responsibilities in a better manner. This will provide a clear picture of what needs to be done and by whom. The system leaders will clearly define the duties, and thus it will be easy for the people to remain accountable and responsible.
In addition to this, system management theory can be adopted to ensure better workflows within the organization (Bush, Bell& Middlewood, 2019). this theory states that an organization consists of multiple components which must work together in harmony for a more extensive system to perform optimally. This theory application will support the individuals within the Healthcare organization to work harmonized and better. As per this theory, the managers within the Healthcare organization will evaluate the events and patterns to determine the best management approach (Jakubowski et al. 2018). everyone will be required to collaborate and work on programs to ensure success of the innovation. A proper and harmonized system is necessary to assign clarified roles and responsibilities to the individuals to implement the e-prescription system. |
| Implementation schedule | Another step in this plan is to schedule. This will support tracking, communicating, and keeping an eye on the progress of the project. This will ensure that every stakeholder is aware of what is going on in the project. With the continuous and proper tracking of the project, it can be provided by the managers and leaders that the implementation of an e-prescription system within the Healthcare organization is going effective.
Thus, the managers and leaders need to be authoritative and influence the employees to work in a better manner. the culture of the Health Care Organisation should be positive and supportive to better communicate with the stakeholders (Palappallil & Pinheiro, 2018). every stakeholder within the healthcare organization needs to be updated about the progress of the project. This will ensure transparency and reliability. |
| Resource allocation | It is the responsibility of the system leaders and managers within the Healthcare organization to identify and ensure that the team has appropriate resources to execute the plan effectively without any obstacles. System managers have to determine what is required by the employees to implement the e-prescription system and what needs to be availed.
The leader should adopt an open-door policy culture so that the workers or employees implementing this system or innovation can easily communicate without any delays (Gopee & Galloway, 2017). Several factors contributing to the organizational culture are leadership principles, relationships, compliance, governance, and communication. Thus, the leaders must provide a better work culture to the employees to adopt and implement innovation. It is the primary characteristic of the system leaders to look and learn. The system leaders understand the components, dynamics, and factors that create the system and generate new ideas and insights. |
| Define metrics | To determine the success of the project, some key performance indicators need to be identified. This will establish that how the success and failure of the tasks can be measured. For example, the leaders or system managers of the Healthcare enterprise can develop some key indicators which will guide the employees or other individuals to keep track of the progress. |
| Contingency plan | As a system manager or leader, it is responsible for planning for challenges while planning for success. A proper plan should be drafted that how the team will navigate if the program goes over budget or does not have any resources.
It is a common phenomenon that in every project, some challenges arise. As an influential leader and manager, it is my duty to deal with the challenges by developing a contingency plan. Moreover, the culture of Change management should also be embedded within the organization. For example, due to any contingency or lack of resources, if the project needs some changes, then the Employees or team must have the capability to adopt those changes immediately. The leader should ensure that the team has the ability to adapt to the changes and work on them as soon as possible. The delay in adopting modifications can lead to project failure or obstacles in the development of e-prescription (Parv et. al. 2016). Hence, in this situation, the change management theory can be embraced by the organization is Lewin’s change management theory. This comprises three steps, including unfreeze, change, and refreeze. |
Measuring the success of the innovation
In order to measure the successful implementation of the proposed innovation of e-prescription within the healthcare organization, a systems model of change management can be adopted. The dimension of the model are:
| People | This variable in the health care system assesses the morale of the individuals. People are the critical Assets of the Healthcare organization. Their level of enthusiasm and confidence to adopt the e-prescription system is one of the most considerable measures for evaluating the success of this innovation. |
| Task | The task is the work that the people within the organization handles. The efficient use of the e-prescriptions system and taking it carefully is the key measure of the success of this recommended innovation. Thus, it can be said that the e-prescription system is successful within the Healthcare context when every task associated with this is effectively done by the practitioner and other parties (Pereira et. al. 2018). |
| Design | This is defined as the organizational structure itself. It is also a system of authority, control, communication, and delegation of accountability and responsibilities. This variable is also a dimension of measuring success as the supportive organizational structure will lead to increased efficiency of the e-prescribing system. |
| Strategy | Strategy can be said as the roadmap of action for realizing future goals. The successful implementation of the e-prescribing system within the Healthcare organization will lead to more strategic innovations and planning. Further, with this, the strengths and weaknesses can be identified, and thus a competitive advantage can be gained. |
| Technology | This variable takes into account the advancements within the technology in the field of automation and information technology. The better use of this e-prescription system is one of the latest advancements of technology (Kowalczyk, Hermanowski & Kolasa, 2017). The Healthcare context needs to work on this technology in an efficient manner, and thus the efficient adoption of technological advancements can highlight the success of this innovation. |
| Culture | Culture refers to the practices, values, Expectations, norms, and beliefs of the individuals of an organization. A better and influential work culture within the Healthcare organization represents the success of the e-prescribing system (Choudhary et. al. 2021). |
Conclusion and recommendation
Hence, from the overall management proposal, it can be concluded that implementing innovation in the healthcare system is a complex process. This Complex process requires an efficient application of leadership and management models. Moreover, the proposed innovation within the proposal has been identified as the application of an e-prescription system.
To apply this innovation within healthcare, the organization requires a supportive work culture, system-based approach, and Change management perspective.
The leaders and managers of the Healthcare organization are needed to adopt efficient and suitable approaches to execute the implementation plan of the e-prescription system. In addition to this, the proposal reveals that the design of Change management will help measure the overall success of the innovation. This e-prescription system is proven for today’s health care system because of the sudden rise of a pandemic. This outbreak of coronavirus has made people understand the importance of making social distancing.
In such a scenario, the critical recommendations per this management proposal are to involve the teams in the planning and implementation process. The Healthcare organization should invite suggestions from various individuals within the organization.
This will support the easy implementation of the whole process and become easy for adopting the same and involving the team in the planning and execution process benefits in managing the Expectations of the leaders. Hence, the managers should communicate about the importance of implementing this technological advancement within the Healthcare organization.
With this innovation, the managers should make the employees understand that it will become easy for the patients to get prescriptions and make the operations and workflows easier. This is the need of the hour, and it should be implemented within the Healthcare organization immediately. Thereby, it is recommended that implementation of this innovation will improve patient care and worker efficiency. Keeping electronic health records is advantageous for the organization in maintaining a proper track.
References
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AlQattan, K. I., &Mirzal, A. (2018). A framework for cloud-based E-prescription in healthcare information system. International Journal of Cloud-Computing and Super-Computing, 5(2), 9-22. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kholoud-Alqattan/publication/336346066_A_Framework_for_Cloud-based_E-Prescription_in_Healthcare_Information_System/links/5d9c9a09458515c1d3a13cd3/A-Framework-for-Cloud-based-E-Prescription-in-Healthcare-Information-System.pdf.
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