Hospital System Management Essays - Health, Personal Life

Hospital System Management Introduction Technology in modern world is increasingly becoming important and necessary in the lives of many people and organizations. For example, use of technology can be cited to be in great use in key areas like education, entertainment, advertisements, banking, warehousing and health (Prakashan 2008, p. 6). Due to this, it can be deduced that for organizations to succeed in modern world the aspect of automation is vital and necessary. Automation of organizations in itself is considered to play a key role of increasing efficiency in the organization while at the same time ensuring quality services that are delivered within the organization (Prakashan 2008, p. 6). All these activities have become possible due to emergence and development of computer systems that are increasingly becoming important within organization due to their ability to add value to services. Different computer based systems have been developed and currently each of them play an important and integrated management role in an organization. Some of the available computer based systems that organizations rely on include Management Information Systems (MIS), Decision Support System (DSS) and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) that are useful in computerizing different activities (Prakashan 2008, p. 6). In this respect of understanding, computer systems in an organization that this research paper aims at study hospital system management in a developing country. Key objectives to realize this include: briefly researching on the history of hospital system management, analysis of existing hospital systems management in a developing country, explaining how a good system should look like and lastly, identifying the ways of managing a hospital system when it has been integrated. Hospital System Management: History Computer systems have evolved to become useful in performing functions like collecting, analyzing, storing, retrieving and displaying information appropriately, as it may be required. At the same time, computer systems perform an important function of integrating resource flows, functions of management organizational working of departments together with various technologies implemented by the organization. To this extent computer systems in an organization are becoming a necessity that an organization cannot function effectively in absence of such systems. In the 21st century, especially for organizations, it entails that to insure an excellent performance organizations will need superior systems that have ability to integrate organizations' activities more effectively. Hospital systems management has been used interchangeably with hospital management systems where in most books the two words have been used to mean the same thing. Moreover, analyzing information in most books on HSM, a thin line that is almost non-existence characterizes HSM and hospital information systems (HIS). Therefore, research on HSM will largely be intertwined with HIS. Accounting HSM history, one has to remember that the history is largely associated with the emergence and development of management engineering in organizations (Wolper 2011, p. 403). The history of the development of hospital system management can be categorized into four groups: 1950s period; 1960-1970 period; 1980s period; 1990s period and the future (present) period (Wolper 2011, p. 403). The 1950s period was characterized by growth of management engineering in hospital where was full-time employment of hospital management engineer. Further, this period was characterized by the development of university programs for education and service in management engineering and the subsequent founding of the hospital management system society (HMSS) in 1961 (Wolper 2011, p. 403). As time went by HMSS has started to be a membership society for majority of information system specialists and since then it evolved to become known as health information and management systems society (HIMSS) in the present times (Wolper 2011, p. 403). The period between 1960s and 1970s was characterized by increased utilization of system resources as management engineering became more integrated in organizations. Utilization of systems was seen to be necessary especially at increasing productivity in healthcare organizations. During this period, management engineering became concerned with improving operations in problem departments and this included enhancing patient admission processes and improving supply systems together with developing efficient employee-scheduling systems (Wolper 2011, p. 403). During the 1980s period hospital management system as a young field continued to grow and expand. This was the period when federal prospective payment system (PPS) was developed (Wolper 2011, p. 403). The objective behind this development was to reduce acute hospitalization that had become a great problem. Systems during this period also concentrated on hospital staffing where was a large creation of systems to maximize reimbursement. During the 1990s period PPS systems continued to be vital but their usefulness was outweighed by great pressures to reduce healthcare costs. As a result, there was the development of an enhanced new reimbursement system that could manage care (Wolper 2011,