Health Clinic Chaos: Case Study
The busy Blessed Heart health clinic is located in Seattle, Washington. The clinic is a Federally Qualified Public Health Clinic that has been serving different patients within the area. The population served by Blessed Heart includes Medicaid and SCHIP population as well as other underinsured self-pay patients. The clinic has 30 physicians who are charged with different roles based on their qualifications. Blessed Heart has just hired a new administrator, Ms. Johnson, in order to handle the hospital operations and address the issues constantly raised by the physicians. Ms. Johnson has worked for other clinics within the area and has been credited with transforming the clinics. Her last role was based within Seattle for Mexi Health Clinic. While she was there, she managed to transform the clinic and eliminate the manual processes by implementing an HMIS. The system assisted the clinic to improve on its record keeping and delivery of services. It was for this reason that the management of Blessed Heart Clinic felt she would be better placed to handle and address the issues facing the clinic. The clinic is in dire need of changes if it going to survive and continue delivering services to patients. The manual system of capturing and storing medical records is the major problem faced by the clinic. The clinic needs to implement a patient records management system that would ensure all records are computerized and can be accessed by physicians across the clinic.
Major complaints
The first major task that Ms. Johnson is faced with was a myriad of complaints by the physicians. Dr. Lego was the physician leader, and they were demanding for changes in the way the clinic is run to ensure they can concentrate on treating patients and not performing administrative tasks. The physicians had ten complaints that they presented...
Johnson had to act on them if she wanted to keep the physicians at the clinic. All the physicians were threatening to quit and go to work for the HMO across the street. The first complaint was regarding patient registration where the clinic was using the FIFO method. The method was good, but it had limitation especially if a patient had to undergo other tests. Using the system, the patient would have to stay on the queue because he/she cannot jump the queue even if they had seen the doctor previously. The system also limited patient treatment because patients would spend long hours in ques. According to Dr. Lego, the medical records were in disarray and not electronic, and this led to the loss of important information. Without electronic records, patient registration becomes also process and returning patients have to redo the paperwork. The loss of records demanded that patients have to undergo tests that they have already done, and this would be an additional cost. Tests results should be communicated in a timely fashion. However, this was not the case at the clinic. Patients were forced to wait for a long time to get their results, and this would have devastating effects.
The physicians have reported Ms. Moody, the woman who runs the patient registration to the previous administrator. The administrator had counseled her, but her behavior had not changed. Ms. Moody is reported to be hostile to patients, physicians, and nurses. This is not an acceptable behavior of handling sick patients. The physicians have a lot on their plate and on top of it they have to undertake other administrative duties like clinic coverage, sick time, and vacations. This clearly demonstrates their need for a change in the clinic's administration Not only the medical records are in disarray, but medical supplies and medications storage is…
