Proposal for HIM Professional on CPOE Project

A student proposes that the CPOE (Computerized Provider Order Entry) project team at Happytown General Hospital should include at least two representatives from the Health Information Management (HIM) department to ensure legal, ethical, and medical standards are maintained. They highlight the importance of HIM professionals in managing patient data, maintaining accuracy and privacy of records, and analyzing health databases.

1Running head: HEALTHCARE
Healthcare
Name of student:
Name of university:
Author note:

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HEALTHCARE
Happytown General Hospital
Dated:
Respected Sir,
Sub: Proposal for having a HIM professional on the CPOE Project team
It is a pleasant news that the facility has undertaken an overall Electronic Health
Record (EHR) implementation strategy and has implemented a computerized ADT system.
The successive phase would be the implementation of a CPOE (Computerized Provider Order
Entry) system. It has been observed that the team members for the CPOE project have no
representative from the Health Information Management (HIM) department. Against this
context, I would like to explain all the benefits of having a HIM professional on the CPOE
Project team.
The most important rationale for including a member of the HIM department is to
ensure that a professional can manage the CPOE system for ensuring that legal, ethical and
medical standards are maintained. Collection and analysis of patient data will be made easier
if these professionals are present. The key job roles of such experts include maintaining the
accuracy of patient records, establishing privacy of patient records, maintaining health
databases and analysing records. Cost-efficient EHR practices can only be achieved if
collaboration is established with HIM experts. The quality of CPOE implemented might be
ineffective and disorganised in their absence. Fragmented delivery systems and information
system restrictions are some of the major issues faced in EHR systems if experienced and
skilled professionals are not handling them. HIM professionals have the exclusive knowledge
and proficiency that when combined with executive teams of other professionals lead to
advanced and safe care delivery (McWay, 2013).

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HEALTHCARE
As pointed out by Abdekhoda et al., (2014) extraction of data from EHR gives the
opportunity to gather information by which needs of quality improvement can be indicated. If
successful HIM practices are upheld, there would be a facilitation of data from a wide range
of sources. This enables data capture that can be repurposed in several instances. EHR
comprises of data used for several purposes by healthcare professionals at different stages of
patient care. Such data, therefore, needs to be overseen by professionals who make no
mistakes in analysing them. HIM practices help in the process of maintaining data
transparency through the promotion of a practice of adopting guidelines in place for data
admittance, exercise, and control. The HIM professional would not be solely an outright
information technologist but also help in increasing volumes of electronic heath data. The
Canadian Health Information Management Association propagates the importance of the
including a HIM professional in all healthcare systems. An increasing health care needs of
the population together with aging population and a focus on efficiency, accountability and
effectiveness of health care services delivery, compunds to be the reason for a skills shortage.
Only a HIM professional would have marketable skills in the health information management
sector and thus needs to be included in the team (echima.ca, 2017).
It is thereby proposed that the CPOE project must have at least two representatives
from the HIM department. Selection can be done after conducting personal interviews and
scrutiny of past experiences and credentials. A meeting can be conducted in following days
that would discuss the details of the selection procedure for the appropriate candidate.
Feedback from the concerned stakeholders would be important in this regard. Candidates can
be selected on a temporary basis which can be renewed based on individual performances.
Looking forward to necessary actions taken in this regard. It is hoped that the
Happytown General Hospital would benefit immensely from this approach.

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HEALTHCARE
Thanking you,
(Name of student)

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HEALTHCARE
References
Abdekhoda, M., Ahmadi, M., Dehnad, A., & Hosseini, A. F. (2014). Information technology
acceptance in health information management. Methods Inf Med, 53(1), 14-20.
McWay, D. C. (2013). Today's health information management: An integrated approach.
Cengage Learning.
The Canadian Health Information Management Association. (2017). echima.ca. Retrieved 5
September 2017, from https://www.echima.ca/home