Competitiveness and Performance Effectiveness for Health Care IT Systems

Ahnna M Atkins

HSA 315

Health Information Systems

Dr. Andrea

Strayer Univerity

Competitiveness and Performance Effectiveness for Health Care IT Systems

Characteristics and Roles of a CTO and a CIO

Information technology (IT) has seen many improvements and this means that all organizations have to embrace these technologies for them to remain competitive in the market. In order to improve services in health care institutions, majority of organizations across the world have embraced the use of IT in their operations. IT enables organizations to make their work easier because of the improved systems of communication. Communication between employees and the management has been made easier, this means that information could be in real time. Health care organizations have priorities, which must be met at all times in order to ensure that patients and other stakeholders are happy when dealing with the organization. Health care institutions' managements must avoid responsible people who would run all IT processes for the organization. Although many people frequently confuse the roles of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Chief Technology Officer (CTO),they each have well defined roles which he or she must perform in order to ensure smooth running of the health care organization (Rothfeder & Driscoll, 2013).

A CTO

It is worth noting that technological innovations are not static, and this means that organizations need a person who is conversant with changes, which take place in the sector. A CTO is with the responsibility of advising senior executives when making strategic decisions concerning technology. The CTO identifies, assesses, and investigates high return and high-risk technologies which possess potential application in existent businesses or when creating a new business. An organization that plans to expand its services must understand how the newest technologies could help it in achieving the set targets and goals. A CTO ensures that he or she is aware of what is happening in the technological world in order to give the best advice to the management. In addition, the CTO is the organization's most senior technology architect as the head of the engineering group. He or she ensures that the organization's products and services are through technology. A CTO's focus is the buyers or clients and uses technology to enable collaboration between suppliers and the management to promote the firm's services and products. The CTO ensures that the organization's products and services are tailored to meet the company's priorities (Phair & Rubin, 2012).

A CTO understands that an organization's sustainability is important. As a result, the CTO must select, evaluate, and monitor technologies, which would be useful for designing future products and services. Although internal managers have qualifications to identify important technologies, it is worth noting that they are charged with the responsibility of the day-to-day running of the organization. This implies that such managers do not have enough time to research on the best technologies that an organization should embrace (Phair & Rubin, 2012). It is of paramount importance to note that important information is in available data; this means that one has to invest a considerable amount of time in analyzing that information. Since a CTO works with the external environment, he or she is in a position to understand what is working for other organizations and apply it in the organization. A successful CTO should work in collaboration with other professionals in the field in order to have access to the best technologies that the organizations would apply (Ross, Beath & Goodhue, 2012).

A CIO

Just like the CTO, a CIO must be conversant with changes that happen in the technological sector. IT experts are continuously developing technologies that would solve problems, which affect the majority of organizations in all business sectors. This means a CIO is always ready to recommend the most recent technologies that could help a health care organization in achieving its goals. The United States government insists that the health care sector has to digitize its processes because this would ease their work. This means that the roles of the CIO must change because all health care institutions are expected to change according to the law. Initially, technology was used for the purposes of institutional functions but things have changed and IT focuses on institutions' business and strategy operations. Health care institutions focus on competitiveness and the safety of patients. However, this cannot be achieved without embracing technologies, which offer the best solutions to patients' health problems (Stephens et al, 2012).

A CIO is a company's most senior technology infrastructure executive. It has to be that each organization has its internal information technology operations and the CIO is with the responsibility of running them. In addition, each business has business processes. This implies that the CIO must ensure that technology is in line with the businesses' operations while at the same time focusing on internal businesses units and buyers. All vendors who supply solutions to infrastructure are managed and collaborated by the CIO. Lastly, the CIO aligns an organization IT infrastructure to the business priorities while developing strategies that would increase profitability for the organization (Robb, 2009).

Two Developing Technologies

Communication is a very aspect in increasing efficiency in service delivery in health care institutions. This is because the number of people who have access to the internet has been on the rise in recent years. Recently, many people own computers and/or Smartphone. Communication systems could be used to ease communication between health care providers and patients. This would save time and money used when one is looking for services. At the same time, patients would be happy to have their questions answered by professionals from the comfort of their homes or offices. At the same time, health care organizations could use social media to reach as many patients as possible (Phair & Rubin, 2012).

Many businesses across the world have been using online bookings. Health care institutions could use this technology to serve patients who live in faraway places. This would ensure that such patients do not have to visit the institutions personally to book appointments because they can do that online. At the same time, patients would be in a position to receive supplies from the institutions by placing orders online. Health care providers could open sub-branches in several areas across the world to serve as many patients as possible (Robb, 2009).

Two Significant Methods that Health Care Systems should use to Protect Data

Development of code division multiple access (CDMA) systems is one method that organizations could use to protect data. This is because only persons with personal identification numbers would have access to any sent data. People without the number cannot access the data because health care data is confidential in most cases. Moreover, this system ensures that any data sent is received. In addition, CDMA enables transfer of large amounts of data and reduces jamming because it allocates each user a certain subcarrier. This increases the number of users who can communicate using the same frequency at the same time thus increasing efficiency in data sharing (Stephens et al, 2012).

Health care institutions should invest in software that is tamper proof to hackers. However, it is worth noting that hackers try to be ahead of technology designers, this means that an organization's CIO should always ensure that he or she is using the latest firewall. This could be achieved by reviewing the effectiveness of the firewall from time to time. The CIO must design a firewall according to the size of the organization. This can be attributed to the fact that small institutions have lesser requirements when compared to larger organizations with a large group of employees (Phair & Rubin, 2012).

One Strategy for Health Care Organizations to Train Providers

Studies have established that majority of employees are resistant to change. However, health care organizations should ensure that all providers are aware of the benefits that would come with a particular change. This would ensure that the provider understands why the change is necessary and, as a result, put effort in learning the method of application. Organizations that try to implement change without involving all employees face many challenges because they find that majority of the employees are happy when working with the old technology. The management must always ensure that it sets a period for implementing a given change that is brought about by technology. This reduces wastage of time and resources while increasing employees' performance (Sambamurthy & Zmud, 2009).

Three Best Practices for Effective IT Alignment and Strategic Planning Initiatives

All well-performing employees must be committed. This could be through promotions or salary increments. This increases motivation among employees because this ensures that each employee works towards achieving his or her targets. Patient satisfaction is because employees are committed to their job descriptions. Moreover, such employees would be happy to embrace technology because it increases efficiency. Health care institutions should always be on meeting the needs of patients, but this is unachievable without a motivated workforce. For an organization to achieve its strategic initiatives, it has to ensure that all employees are committed and willing to work towards achieving the organization's vision (Stephens et al., 2012).

It has to be that the best way to increase employee performance is through conducting performance appraisal. Health care institutions should conduct performance appraisal from time to time in order to reduce employee redundancy. Employee redundancy is an expensive affair for any organization because some employees are for services, which they do not offer. This reduces performance among other employees because they feel that their services are used to pay non-performing employees (Foster, 2010).

Management has to retrain its employees because this increases performance. Since technology is always changing, employees have to be taught on how to use the latest technologies, which an organization adopts. Training courses could be conducted internally as long as the organization has qualified personnel to teach them. On the other hand, this could be outsourced especially when the organization does not have people who are conversant with the technology being implemented. Refresher courses ought to be done periodically even when an organization is not implementing changes. After the course, employees must be subjected to a test with a pass mark because this would ensure that all workers are keen on what they are learning (Sambamurthy & Zmud, 2009).

References

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Phair, M. & Rubin, D. K. (2012). “Bytes, bucks and big pictures.” Engineering News Review, 241(16): 123-129.

Robb, W. L. (2009). “Is Your Corporate Lab Taking Enough Risk?” Research Technology Management, 43(3): 23-29.

Ross, J. W., Beath, C. M, & Goodhue, D. L. (2012). "Develop Long-Term Competitiveness through IT Assets." Sloan Management Review, 38(1): 31-42.

Rothfeder, J. & Driscoll, L. (2013). "CIO is starting to stand for Career Is Over." Business Week, 2(1): 47-48.

Sambamurthy, V., & Zmud, R.W. (2009). "Arrangements for Information Technology Governance: A Theory of Multiple Contingencies." MIS Quarterly, 23(2): 261-288.

Stephens, C. S., Ledbetter, W. N., Mitra, A., & Ford, F. N. (201). "Executive or Functional Manager? The Nature of the CIO's Job." MIS Quarterly, 16(4): 449-468.

What is IT strategy information technology strategy ... (n.d.). Retrieved from http://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/IT-strategy-information-technology-strategy