CASE 3-16 Workflow Technology You started as the new director of HIM last week.

Question

CASE 3-16 Workflow Technology You started as the new director of HIM last week. Your department began using workflow technology six weeks ago with the EHR. With the implementation of workflow, the department started coding and analyzing charts online. Other tasks involved in the workflow are as follows: • Notifying risk management of issues identified • Communications with physicians • Communications with business office • Communications with supervisor • Routing charts that meet criteria to performance improvement for review One of the first things that you noticed when you started work was the stress level of the coders—they are panicking. You also found that the billing hold report is at $2.4 million, when the expected level is below $300,000. In a meeting with the coders, they all tell you that they hate using the new system. You also learn that much of their distress is a result of the fact that they were not involved in the selection or implementation of the new system. In addition, they had only a short training period, so they do not feel comfortable using the system.

1. Describe how to proceed to resolve the problems.

2. Formulate a plan so that future system selections do not incur these same problems.

Explanation / Answer

1) First thing that you should do is to ensure they are given complete training on the new system. Since they are comfortable working with the old system, they need some time to switchover or change to the functionalities of the new system. Since it just few weeks before that the company started using workflow technology, key workflow problems needs to be noted and those problems need to be mitigated. In the other words, tackling the workflow can lead to faster process improvement, lower overall costs, and more informed budgeting.

Organizations that evaluate and re-engineer coding workflow will have an opportunity to identify bottlenecks in the system. After identifying the bottlenecks, and by removing them, the processes, speed and accuracy will improve. That will in turn increase the confidence and reduce the stress of the coders. For example, workflow technology can automatically assign records to coders by speciality, diagnosis, procedure, or other factor. This will increase their efficiency, accuracy and speed.

2) A plan that could help in preventing similar problems in the future are :

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse C
• Subjects

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.