Overcoming Barriers to Adopting and Implementing Computerized Essay

Overcoming Barriers to Adopting and Implementing Computerized Physician Order Entry Systems in U.S. Hospitals - Essay Example The central point of the study â€Å"Overcoming Barriers to Adopting and Implementing Computerized Physician Order Entry Systems in U.S. Hospitals† by Poon et al. (2004) is that implementing a Computerized Physician Order Entry system (CPOE) is not easy because the costs are high, there is opposition from various quarters of the hospital, and there may be issues with vendors. Also institutions that do not give importance to quality care and patient safety may not even plan for a CPOE. The main finding of this study is that hospitals can overcome problems during the implementation of the CPOE by having strong leaders who can administer the CPOE, realigning the approach of improving patient safety through technology, and developing strong relationships with a vendor committed to meeting the needs of the hospital and providing a customized CPOE system to the hospital. Besides, hospitals implementing the CPOE without much support and motivation from the senior management are likel y to have various problems during implementation such as physician’s reluctance to use the system, lack of training for the users of the CPOE, and poor involvement in development. Currently, different CPOE vendors use different data processes for transmitting information, and these processes may have high development costs. Consequently, vendors are likely to pass on the costs to the customers, who in turn make it difficult for the smaller hospitals to afford and implement a CPOE System. Instead, if standard data protocols such as Health Level 7 (HL7 – An interational heatlh informatics standard for interoperability) were utilized in the CPOE, then vendors would not only find it easy to incorporate HL7 or other data protocols in their system, but also lower the costs of the CPOE system; in 2009 it was found that 30% of the healthcare budget was spent on redundancies including poor technologies (Doolan, 2009). Prior Research The Poon et al. research study finds three co nsiderations that hospitals should use when planning for implementation of the CPOE system. One consideration is the number of deaths from medication error is about 98000 per year; most of these errors are preventable. Leapfrog Group (a healthcare organization involved with patient safety, healthcare technologies and financing) has considered CPOE as one of the patient goals. The current CPOE adoption rate is about 5 to 10% (Poon et al., 2004). Poon has found that previous studies have described some of the challenges that may be applicable during implementation, but have not come up with solutions. This study tries to go further by providing solutions to these challenges. A need for CPOE was strongly felt when the death rate from medical error (in hospitals in New York) was about 98000 per annum a decade back; a good portion of these errors were preventable (Kohn, 1999, p. 1). By incorporating CPOE in the healthcare system, the chances of reducing the medical errors are about 55 %. ( Doolan et al., 2004). However, as of 2004, it was found that only 10 to 15% of the hospitals in the U.S. actually use CPOE systems, and many of the hospitals are unaware of the manner of addressing challenges that can arise during the implementation of the CPOE should be addressed (Ash, 2004). To understand in greater detail regarding CPOE’s implementation, in-depth interviews were organized with the management of about 26 hospitals in the US that were in various stages of the CPOE implementation. After organizing the interview, three barriers were identified. These included resistance to the CPOE implementation from certain quarters of the hospital, high costs of implementation, and lack of vendor or product maturity. Research Question The research question in Poon et al. (2004) is â€Å"What are the different barriers to the implementation of the CPOE system in the hospital and how can these problems is addressed?† The research aimed at finding ways to identify and tackle