MAN6935: The Business Case for EHR Investment in Doctor's Practice

This report analyzes the business case for investing in Electronic Health Records (EHR) within a doctor's practice, drawing on the provided case study of Greenway Medical Technologies and relevant research. It examines the business context, market dynamics, challenges, constraints, and ethical considerations related to EHR implementation. The report details the functions, architecture, equipment, and potential implementation risks associated with EHR systems. It highlights the key stakeholders, including patients, doctors, and hospital management, and explores the costs and benefits of EHR adoption, such as automation, improved reporting, and paperless administration. The analysis considers software solutions, target customers, and the overall impact on healthcare workflows and patient care. The report provides a comprehensive overview of the issues essential for developing a successful business case for EHR investment.

DATA
Business context of a doctor’s practice:
1. Doctors earn through fees from patients which is their primary source of income
2. When doctors treat patients effectively, there are chances that patients would come back to
them which would give them the opportunity to earn more
3. For doctors, patient health is always a priority and only after that should money be a
concern
4. A doctor gets reviews from patients and referrals that can increase their revenues by
bringing more patients
5. The investments that a doctor has to make for patient care depends on the kind of business
one runs. A doctor treating patients in a clinic would incur significant cost in infrastructure
but a doctor serving patients in a hospital may not have these costs
Nature of the business market:
1. The market of the business consists of patients who can serve as informed customers and
thus, can participate in recovery activities.
2. The market works on referrals as one patient informs other and this helps bring more
patients to a hospital or a clinic
3. The patients are willing to spend more for a better service because health is their priority
4. The healthcare system has multiple entities that serve the patients together including
hospitals, pharmacies, and testing labs. Thus, if these services are combined, more patients
can be given services
5. The documentation of patient details help in evaluating the cases such that the lessons
gained from them can also help other similar cases
Challenges:
1. A main challenge in a doctors business is his need to be ethical in practice that can cause
conflicts in business objectives
2. The doctor operating in a clinic would also have costs of infrastructure and systems but at
the same time, one cannot increase price because otherwise patients would go to other
doctors. A clinic patient would not come to the doctor for a severe disease unless the doctor
has a specialization in it
3. A doctor is usually specialized in one area and thus, can serve only a limited number of
patients
4. A doctor cannot generate demand for his or her services but has to depend on the already
existing trends to get the business
5. A doctor would need to create a balance between the number of patient one can serve and
the time he or she gives to each patient as former would bring more revenues while later
would create an impact on the patient and is essential for relationship building
Constraints:
1. A doctor is a person who works individually to serve patients such that he cannot delegate
the work of diagnosis to any one else which puts the limitations of time on him
2. A doctor would have limited man hours in which he has to maximize the patient turns

3. A doctor cannot play by watch and leave the patient without getting the full details which
could lead increase in the waiting time for others as doctor would be spending more time
with one patient with a major case
4. A doctor in the hospital has to work by rules and follow all the documentation procedures
without fail that are needed as per rules
5. Timing is a major constraint with a doctor who specializes as it is limited
Special regulatory, social and ethical circumstances:
1. Ethics is of great importance to doctors and the regulatory bodies define codes for them to
follow such as taking care of the benefits of patients and giving them priority over own care.
2. No patient should be refused a treatment as per the regulation.
3. Every case has to be documented properly as defined in the regulatory standards
4. The experience of the patient would impact the brand of the hospital and the doctor as this
business has strong word of mouth power
5. Most business is received through social referrals from patients and thus, it is important for
the doctor to keep the patients satisfied
Areas of breakdown or problems:
1. Changes in life of the doctor due to practice.
2. Logistical issues
3. Issues of time
4. Diagnostic errors
5. Exposure to infections borne by patients
Processes and services :
1. The doctors primary goal is to provide consulting but a doctor can also be involved in surgery
practices.
2. Additional services can also be provide by a doctor such as medical spa
3. Elderly care can be used by hospitals to serve more
4. Doctors can create educational resources for awareness
5. Internet based applications can help company provide more features to patients
key stakeholders: Key stakeholders of the project are
1. patients
2. fellow doctors
3. government
4. regulatory bodies
5. Hospital management
Software package solutions :
1. Greenway Health offers EHR which is its flagship product used for automating workflow in
the healthcare services
2. Revenue cycle management
3. Quality training and support
4. Practice analytics
5. Patient engagement beyond work
Target Customers:

 Hospitals
 Doctors running clinics
 Pharmacies
 Testing labs
 Patients
Background:
1. The hospitals that are using manual administrative procedures
2. Maintaining documents is tedious and taking much time of the staff
3. Patients need more proactive and real time response from doctors
4. There are too many people involved in managing the healthcare work flow including
doctors, health practitioners, surgeons nurses, hospital staff, pharmacies, lab assistants, and
medicine suppliers.
5. Keeping health records intact and safe is necessary as case history plays importance in
deciding treatments throughout the patient’s life
Functions: The product would provide solutions for
1. Patient administration
2. Clinical information
3. Clinical performance
4. Billing management
5. Workflow management
Architecture: The product uses a web based architecture in which data would be stored on cloud
Equipment: Web based application
Implementation Risks:
1. If the solution is not well customized for the hospital, it can result into technical difficulties in
performance
2. The solution must be made secure as it has to deal with the personal data of patients
3. The hospital may have some legacy system and infrastructure that may not be compatible
with the current solution in which case, the hospital may need to upgrade its systems
4. Lack of sufficient time given for implementation can cause difficulties
5. Testing can reveal bugs that could take time to correct before the implementation can be
given a final go as completed
Costs and Benefits: The software has a license cost for acquisition and the benefits include –
1. Automation of processes of billing
2. Ability of making any changes with users
3. Comprehensive reporting
4. The software can be operated on any device
5. Paperless medicine administration
Roles & Responsibilities: Key roles who would be involved in project of development and selling of
the software to doctors are

1. developer who would be delivering codes for website development
2. webmaster who would be taking care of the updates on it
3. the doctor who would be operating the software to deliver services to patients
4. Staff who would be directing the patients to support them with formalities
5. Pharmacy managers who have to keep updating the system with available medicines and
help patients find one from the system