Business Case for IMS Implementation at St Cuthbert's Healthcare

This report presents a comprehensive business case for the implementation of Intelligent Medical Software (IMS) at St. Cuthbert's Healthcare, a group of three medium-sized private hospitals in Australia. The analysis begins with an overview of the Australian healthcare landscape, highlighting the role and challenges faced by private hospitals, including data inconsistencies and the need for improved patient outcomes. The report proposes IMS, developed by Meditab Software, Inc., as a suitable IT solution, detailing its architecture, functions (IMS Clinical, Manager, CarePortal, and OrderPlus), and system requirements. It addresses potential risks such as limited interoperability and privacy violations while outlining the costs and benefits, including enhanced quality of care, reduced errors, and improved efficiency. The report also defines roles and responsibilities for IMS implementation, concluding with a strong recommendation for IMS to enhance patient care and streamline healthcare delivery at St. Cuthbert’s Healthcare.

Running head: BUSINESS CASE FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION OF IMS AT ST. CUTHBERT’S 1
The Business Case for Investing in IMS at St Cuthbert’s Healthcare.
Student’s name
Institution of affiliation

BUSINESS CASE FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION OF IMS AT ST. CUTHBERT’S 2
Requirements for a private hospital.
The business context of private hospitals.
Private hospitals play an important role in the Australian health market. In 2012, private
hospitals accounted for 44% of Australia’s hospitals, 33% of available beds and 39% of all
hospitalizations (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2014). In Australia, private hospital
costs are unsubsidized, unlike public hospitals. This locks out those lacking private insurance
and cannot pay using their own funds (Dixit & Sambasivan, 2018). Private hospitals operate in a
special social circumstance involving the disparities in health outcomes between urban and rural
regions and that between the Aboriginal and the rest of the Australian populations. The federal
government is seeking to address this by providing incentives for healthcare providers targeting
the above-mentioned populations (Mossialos & Wenzl, 2016).
Areas of breakdown and problems in the practice
Data from private hospitals in Australia is collected and analyzed through multiple reporting
channels. This poses a risk of data that is inconsistent with public hospital data. This makes it
difficult to analyze the relationship between financial and activity trends for assessing the
relative performance of private and public hospitals as required by the National Healthcare
Agreement (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2014).
Processes and services performed
Private hospitals complement public hospitals in the provision of healthcare services in
Australia. Services provided by private hospitals include medical hospitalizations (non-operation
room procedure), surgical, other care (involving non-operating room procedures like endoscopy),
childbirth admissions and specialist mental healthcare (Australian Institute of Health and
Welfare, 2014).

BUSINESS CASE FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION OF IMS AT ST. CUTHBERT’S 3
Key stakeholders, their needs and requirements.
The Australian private health system comprises of providers, consumers, funders and the
government (Global Access Partners, 2015). The providers are the private hospitals while the
consumers are the patients. Private hospitals receive their funding from insurers, the federal
government rebates on health insurance premiums, and from private patients (Mossialos &
Wenzl, 2016). The government plays the role of regulation through licensing controls.
IT solution.
Solution vendor and their background
St Cuthbert's Healthcare needs an IT solution that collects and analyzes patient information to
improve patient outcomes and meet stakeholder requirements. This paper proposes the Intelligent
Medical Software (IMS), developed by Meditab Software, Inc. Meditab is a healthcare solutions
provider founded in 1988 and has headquarters in Oakland, California (Meditab Software Inc.,
n.d.).
The architecture of IMS and its functions.
IMS is a hybrid integrated Electronic Health Records (EHR) and Practice Management solution.
The architecture is composed of IMS Clinical, IMS Manager, IMS CarePortal and IMS
OrderPlus. IMS Clinical is a powerful EHR that allows for easy documentation of patient visits.
It links pre-formatted symptoms of common conditions to their treatment. IMS Manager is
comprehensive practice management with tools for scheduling, patient tracking, billing, and
authorization and referrals. IMS CarePortal allows health care professionals to connect with the
patient. It allows the viewing lab results, paying bills, accessing educational information etc.
These can be accessed from the mobile app IMS Go. Lastly, IMS OrderPlus is an e-prescribing
tool for tracking dosing, drug interaction and refill history (Meditab Software Inc., n.d.).

BUSINESS CASE FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION OF IMS AT ST. CUTHBERT’S 4
IMS requirements
The system requirements for IMS are; workstations, peripheral hardware such as printers,
internet connection, and a database server. The workstations require a minimum of 4GB RAM,
120GB hard drive and an Intel i5 2.70 GHz processor ("Intelligent Medical Software - Hardware
Specifications," 2019).
Potential risks in the implementation of IMS
There are two potential risks of clinical information systems such as IMS. The first is limited
interoperability which results from different vendors developing EHR systems using different
platforms thus complicating the sharing of information. The second risk is the risk of patient
privacy violations. Stringent measures must be put in place to deter inappropriate access of
patient data (Wager et al., 2013).
Costs and Benefits of IMS
IMS pricing starts at a monthly charge of $199.00 per user ("IMS by Meditab," n.d.). IMS helps
the healthcare professional to enhance the quality of care and thus improve patient outcomes. It
offers built-in reporting tools for analyzing practice patterns and quality measurements. It
reduces billing errors and denials and achieves connectivity with other health care entities.
Lastly, IMS reduces paper clutter thus freeing up storage space and reducing office expenses
(Meditab Software Inc., n.d.).
Roles and responsibilities
The implementation of IMS requires a large range of skilled staff who have a background in
clinical delivery administration, management and IT. The IMS team includes site coordinators,
program management office, training, communications, and maintenance and system support.
Each health facility requires a team of site coordinators for the support and coordination of IMS.

BUSINESS CASE FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION OF IMS AT ST. CUTHBERT’S 5
They liaise with key stakeholders to test the functionality of the application as well as to train
and support the user (Meditab Software Inc., n.d.).
Conclusion
IMS leads to higher standards of patient care by giving timely patient information and enabling
better health decision making. Moreover, it increases patient satisfaction and improves the
efficiency of delivering healthcare thus is highly recommended for St. Cuthbert’s Healthcare.

BUSINESS CASE FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION OF IMS AT ST. CUTHBERT’S 6
References
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (2014). The rise of private hospitals - Preventing
and treating ill health (Australia's health series no. 14).
Dixit, S. K., & Sambasivan, M. (2018). A review of the Australian healthcare system: A
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Global Access Partners. (2015). The Australian Healthcare System as a Market - GAP
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Wager, K. A., Lee, F. W., & Glaser, J. P. (2013). Health care information systems: A
practical approach for health care management. John Wiley & Sons.