Information Technology System Design

Introduction

Introduction of various new and updated technology and practice within the health care profession have resulted in many changes in the practices of Nursing and Patient Care Delivery. Therefore, in order to continue effective and efficient treatments of patients, it is essential that the staff in any hospital, clinic or medical facility adapt themselves with the changes (Ranawat and Ryan, 2013).

Health information technology (Health IT) has the ability to provide improved care for patients, and to help clinicians in achieving continuous enhancements in the quality of care in primary care settings. This revolution is possible by implementing existing health IT tools into current practices (Power and Faden, 2006).

The United States allocates funds in the development and betterment of health and medical advancement. This is done to ensure quality and sufficient medical facilities and aid is provided to all the citizens without bias (Power, 2006). Because of the need and importance of medical programs, we have a federal health plan known as Medicare (Roy, 2012).

Goal

In this paper, I plan to document an IT solution for transforming a small urgent care facility into a compliant facility meeting the minimum mandatory requirements for EMRs. The solution will follow the basic Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) steps. This includes privacy, security, shared resources, data format, storage, and common file format for EMRs. Why are Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) so important in health care treatment? The importance is two-fold first is regulatory and the second is access portability. The regulatory requirements are mandated by congress under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH), and the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA). HIPAA details patient privacy and regulations for health care-related businesses. HITECH is specifically...