New Century Health Clinic Ch.4

New Century Health Clinic

New Century Health Clinic offers preventive medicine and traditional medical care. In your role as an IT Consultant, you will help New Century develop a new information system. Background New Century Health Clinic has decided to computerize its office systems. The associates hired you, a local computer consultant, to perform a preliminary investigation. You had several meetings with Dr. Tim Jones to discuss the various office records and accounting systems. Anita Davenport, New Century’s office manager, participated in those meetings. In a report to the associates at the end of your investigation, you recommended conducting a detailed analysis of the patient record system, the patient and insurance billing systems, and the patient scheduling system. You believe that New Century would benefit most from implementing those three systems. Although the systems could be developed independently, you recommended analyzing all three systems together because of the significant interaction among them. You presented your findings and recommendations at a late afternoon meeting of the associates. After answering several questions, you left the meeting so they could discuss the matter privately. Dr. Jones began the discussion by stating that he was impressed with your knowledge and professionalism, as well as your report and presentation. Dr. Jones recommended accepting your proposal and hiring you immediately to conduct the systems analysis phase. Dr. Garcia, however, was not as enthusiastic and pointed out that such a study would certainly disrupt office procedures. The staff already had more work than they could handle, she argued, and taking time to answer your questions would only make the situation worse. Dr. Jones countered that the office workload was going to increase in any event, and that it was important to find a long-term solution to the problem. After some additional discussion, Dr. Garcia finally agreed with Dr. Jones’s assessment. The next morning, Dr. Jones called you and asked you to go ahead with the systems analysis phase of the project. Assignments 1. Review the office organization chart you prepared in Chapter 1 for New Century. 2. List the individuals you would like to interview during the systems analysis phase. 3. Prepare a list of objectives for each of the interviews you will conduct. 4. Prepare a list of specific questions for each individual you will interview.

5. Conduct the interviews. (Consult your instructor regarding how to accomplish this. One possibility is through role-playing.) 6. Prepare a written summary of the information gained from each of the interviews. (Your instructor may want you to use a standard set of interview results.) 7. Design a questionnaire that will go to a sample of New Century patients to find out if they were satisfied with the current insurance and scheduling procedures. Your questionnaire should follow the suggestions in this chapter. Also, decide what sampling method you will use and explain the reason for your choice.