Introduction
Sharjah hospital is one of the health care institutions found in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that uses Trackare information system. Because the hospital is enabled on the Trackare information system, it captures a wide range of data on patients from different parts of the world to enable doctors and nurses to offers a wide range of services to patients from different and outside of United Arab Emirates (UAE) (Intersystems, 2015). Despite providing a wide range of healthcare services to customers from different parts of the country such as the Middle East, the problem is that the use of information systems within the institution has not been studies and information made available on the functionality and related issues. Despite that, empirical evidence suggests that information systems play a significant role in the provision of medical healthcare services both to inpatients and outpatients besides offering support for the healthcare givers such as doctors, nurses, and support staff to perform their tasks with efficiency and effectiveness.
Objectives
- Investigate the administrative use of TrakCare healthcare information system
- Analyze UML diagrams showing the interrelationship among the hospital information systems components
- Develop component and sub-component diagrams of the system architecture
- Analyze a user interface for the hospital staff for accessing and interacting with patient information
Significance of the study
The study will elucidate the need for an information system in hospital environment for those who have not gained an insight into the benefits f integrating computers into the healthcare environment.
Literature review
Investigate the administrative use of TrakCare healthcare information system
That is in addition to the efficient and effective provision of healthcare services, Sharjah Hospital where TrakCare healthcare information system is used to fulfil patient management objectives besides managing administrative, financial, and medical operations in a fully integrated computerized environment. TrakCare healthcare information system provides best evidence-based clinical healthcare services with patient involvement (Feng, Siu, & Zhang, 2013). The goal is to ensure an integrated solution that enables efficient and effective access, processing, and storage of patient information for the management of inpatients and outpatients. Cost effectiveness is a prime consideration because of the automation of various processes within the hospital. The services are offered to enable doctors, nurses, and those working in the hospital environment to store, retrieve, and update the patient’s medical records in real time. Such a goal cannot be achieved without using an information system that has a user friendly interface to route diagnostic information electronically.
Support services
The proposed study will focus on investigating the use of TrakCare healthcare information system to offer end-to-end enterprise level medical administration services, provide data to stakeholders such as the government besides automating the hospital routine workflow of asks (Intersystems, 2015). The underlying architecture is the client server, which enables users to perform different services on the platform such as requesting for information about the patient, updating client records, and securing the storage of patient data. Besides, the information system provides the patient with the desired level of information depending on the system and sub-system components.
Modularization of information system
According to Kuperman, Gardner, and Pryor (2013), the core system is divided into different modules as shown in figure 1, which include policy and procedure management system, laboratory information system, and Radiology information system for the storage of patient images besides facilitating the work flow of radiological services. Besides, there are additional components that make the information system complete, such as the human resource department for the management of the medical and on-medical staff, pharmacy information system for the dispensing requested drugs and for over the counter transactions, rooster management system that enables the management to schedule hours of the nursing staff, maintain shift rotation, and support inventory of the patient information (Intersystems, 2015). The proposed system is based on a distributed architecture that utilizes industrial and market standards such as the TCP/IP protocol, UNIX operating systems, Windows operating system, and related products.
Figure 1 shows the several modules such as registration of the TrakCare information system.
UML diagrams showing the interrelationship of hospital information systems components
A preliminary analysis of the UML diagram showing the relationships among the hospital information system components clearly indicates the division and interconnectedness of different departments that can be decomposed into several class diagrams. The research study will investigate the connection of class diagrams which make the constituent components of the information system and how they interact. That is besides the abstract classes consisting of standard class stereotypes, class stereotypes that are not up to standard, and the type of data processed for use in the system.
Figure 2 shows the interrelated components, which include the hospital, patients, doctor, nurses, receptions, technician, technologist, and surgical technologist. The operations, administrative, technical, and the staff in general are indicated in the diagram.
Class diagrams of the relationship among the components
A typical example of the class diagram is shown in figure 3 above consisting of a description of the array of integrated elements and the technical link between the customer/patient.
Develop component and sub-component diagrams of the system architecture
Based on the components defined in figure 4 below, the interaction of the components with the centralised system will be investigated and purpose of each element determined. A preliminary investigation shows that the architecture consists of the HRM data processing utility, the user interface design, the hospital management database, the equipment database, and hospital management system local server.
The research will investigate the relationship among the components as shown in figure 4, which includes the user database, hospital management system, user interface, and human resource data processing utility. The goals to determine the design and support services offered at each level of information.
Analyze a user interface for the hospital staff for accessing and interacting with patient information
Figure 5 above shows a typical user interface form that is used to capture patient information such as registration number, name, marital status, address, registration date, telephone number, gender, and religious status (Intersystems, 2015). The research will investigate and analyse the usability of various interface designs of the hospital information system. Besides, the usability of the user interface design will investigated in the context of supporting naïve and specialized users to locate interactive feature on the system.
Description
The system to be investigated consists of various components to support the provision of healthcare services to the people from within United Arab Emirates (UAE) and other countries within the Middle East.
Basically, Trackare information system offers a platform consisting of different modules shown in figure 1 that support administrative, clinical and departmental modules integrated into an information system. The study will be based on the systems theory of thinking that deviates from seeing a system as a linear model to viewing the information system in the context of goal directness.
Scientific background
Here, nursing informatics is based on the scientific background of merging technology with healthcare service delivery. According to Staggers and Thompson (2002), the scientific foundation of nursing informatics is a professional vocabulary that derives its definition from the use of information technology to offer healthcare services, support education, collect and analyse patient data, and enable decision making.
Advantages and disadvantages
The research will investigate the advantages and disadvantages of using computerized information system in the use of Trackare information at Sharjah hospital. Staggers and Thompson (2002) argue that among the preliminary advantages include real time access to patient data, effective decision making, secure and centralised data storage, and better administration of hospital activities. The disadvantages include insecure patient data and the need to study the system before using it. Figure 6 is a typical presentation of the flow of services within the information system to be investigated.
Methodology
According to Kumar and Phrommathed (2005), the research will be based on both the qualitative and quantitative research paradigms that will involve an extensive literature review on hospital information systems and the statistical analysis of quantitative data to determine how TrakCare healthcare information system was implemented. The quantitative paradigm provides data based by administering data collection instruments on the Sharjah Hospital staff with measurements on the data done on the Likert scale. Besides, the research design will answer the purpose of the research and a stratified sampling method will be used to collect the participants to collect data for analysis within the set time frame.
References
Feng, D., Siu, W. C., & Zhang, H. J. (2013). Multimedia information retrieval and management: Technological fundamentals and applications. New York: Springer Science & Business Media.
Intersystems: TrakCare You’ll make breakthroughs in patient care. (2015). Web.
Kumar, S., & Phrommathed, P. (2005). Research methodology (pp. 43-50). New York: Springer US.
Kuperman, G. J., Gardner, R. M., & Pryor, T. A. (2013). HELP: a dynamic hospital information system. New York: Springer Science & Business Media.
Staggers, N., & Thompson, C. B. (2002). The evolution of definitions for nursing informatics. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 9(3), 255-261.
Appendix 1
The aim of this survey is to collect data for analysis to determine investigate the administrative use of TrakCare healthcare information system. Please answer the questions to the best of your ability.
Role play by administrative and healthcare providers
- What is your role in this hospital (list only one role)?
- Do you have knowledge on the use of computerized information systems?
- Does the hospital use and information system?
- Name the type of information system being used in this hospital
- Do you find the system user friendly? Yes/No (choose one only)
- Is your role facilitated by the use of the information system?
- Do you support the use of the information system in offering medical services?
- How do you rate the usability of the information system? (Use a scale of one to five: Scale: 1-excllent, 2- Good, 3-Fair, 4- Bad, 5-Worst) to perform the following tasks.
- Communicate with other staff
- Admit the patient
- Access patient data
- Prescribe medicine
- Share patient information
- Storage of patient data
- Secure patient information
- Do you understand functions of different modules of the information system?
- If yes in 9 above, list the modules
- Do you thing the information system is important for future growth of the hospital
- Do you think it is important for better service delivery?
Thanks for your participation.
Appendix 2
Analyze UML diagrams showing the interrelationship among the hospital information systems components.
- What is your role in the information technology department
- What is your level of education
- How many years of experience do you have working at your level?
- Do you understand the IT infrastructure within the hospital? (yes/No)
- Please list the components
- Do you understand the role of each component?
- Please, if yes above, list the components and their roles
- Please list the role and the relationship among the components
- Does the system generate useful reports for medical staff to act on?
- Comment on the information system
Appendix 3
Develop component and sub-component diagrams of the system architecture. This is a preliminary questionnaire for collecting data on information system components.
- Have you ever participated in the development of an information system?
- Can you list the components found in the information system?
- Please rate you knowledge in computing
1-excllent, 2- Good, 3-Fair, 4- Bad, 5-Worst - Please state the number of hours you take to interact with the information system________
- Do you think users get satisfied with the current system (yes/no)
Appendix 4
Analyze a user interface for the hospital staff for accessing and interacting with patient information. The following is a preliminary questionnaire for collecting user interface data.
- How many years of experience do you have in designing information systems?
- Please note how you determine a good user interface
- What technical aspects do you consider when designing a good user interface?
_______________
_______________
_______________
_______________
_______________ - Does the user interface capture different aspects of patient data?
Yes/No - Is the user interface user friendly? (yes/No)
- Is it easy to interact with the information system? (yes/No)