The Impact of IT on Business

Questions: You are to research a real life business example of your choice and the impact of IT on that business. Important points 1) Does business need IT? 2) Why IT is important for business survival? 3) What is required to apply IT into business? (Cost, planning, designing, equipment, installation, training, etc...) 4) How does business use IT? (internally such as staff, employees, and externally such as customers, suppliers) 5) What benefits and advantages does IT bring to business? (Revenue, flexibility, reduces cost, etc....) 6) What type of risk does IT bring to business? (security, privacy, confidentiality) 7) How can business maintain and monitor IT? Your report will be assessedon the quality of your research and report presentation. Answers: 1. Introduction A new healthcare setup in the city of Darwin, Australia is being planned by Sunshine Inc. (name changed due to confidentiality clause). They are planning to start a hospital named Sunshine Hospitals that would provide care in multiple specialties. Sunshine Inc. is currently looking into ways they can enhance their business to ensure that the best services are provided to their clients. The below report is a detailed statement on how Information technology (IT) industry would be helpful to Sunshine Hospital. The report explains what IT is and its need for survival of the business, highlighting the various benefits and advantages of IT. The report also details the risk of IT implementation and steps to maintain and monitor IT. 2. IT and its need Information Technology popularly known as IT is the method of digitizing data by storing, retrieving and manipulating the same with the help of computers. The IT industry was revolutionized with the advent of complex computer networks and Internet. The need for implementing IT in every business has grown exponentially due the productivity, efficiency and agility provided by the digitized world. Manual labor and human errors can be tremendously reduced when the right software and hardware systems are implemented. Considering the case of Sunshine Hospitals, a simple example would be a patient tracking and billing system. When done manually the job is tedious as a register has to be maintained that collects the basic information of the patient, services provided, medicines suggested, doctors consulted and so on (Devaraj, 2013). Also, if the patient visits for a second time after a long period, retrieving the previous records of the same time consuming. If the same can be easily implemented with the help of IT. A software that has access to a database can be developed and installed onto a computer system. At the reception, the basic information of the patient can be loaded into the software and stored in the database with a unique identification number. From then on, the doctors consulted, services proved etc. can be directly uploaded to the patients record. In case the patient visits again, all the receptionist has to do is entire the ID number. Even if the patient forgets their number, sorting with the help of full name and dates would provide a consolidated list for the receptionist to select the correct record. The time consumed for the entire process is very little and the room for error is tremendously reduced (Smith, 2014). 3. Applying IT into Business To apply IT into business the primary requirement is to identify the areas in which IT would be implemented. IT can be simply used for billing and finance or can be applied to border areas such marketing, sales record maintenance, providing patient reports online and so on. Hence, one factor that influences the application of IT is the areas in which IT needs to be integrated (Bardhanm, 2013). The second factor to consider is the amount of data that needs to be stored, the acceptable lag time and the complexity of the software to be used. In case of Sunshine Inc. Applying IT in the form of Electronic Medical Record along with Picture Archiving and Communications Systems and a billing system is recommended. The hospital would also be recommended to purchase a database to store patient information. The cost for installation of IT systems is considerably high, however, given the advantages and the need to consolidate and secure patient records the services provided by IT would be much a ppreciated than the initial cost (Kohli, 2012). Once the planning is done and the infrastructure along with the necessary software is completed, the hospital staff need to be trained on how to use the IT. However, the user interface is fairly simple and hence training would be quick and easy. 4. Using IT Sunshine Inc. is planning to use IT only for internal purposes currently and then extend the same to the patients. The receptionist fills in the basic information of the patient and the record would be stored with a unique identification number. Once the patient consults the doctor, the details of the doctor and medication provided and test is any, are recorded in to the profile by the attending nurse. In case of test, the pathologist would have access to the data file of the patient and would perform the necessary test and upload the results to the database against the patients record. The doctor would then check the records on the computer to further analyze the patient. Once the necessary healthcare is provided, the system would generate the bill and the same is collected from the patient (Hwang, 2016). 5. Advantages, risks and maintenance of IT Sunshine Inc. is into the health care industry where a simple mistake can cost a patients life. There are several cases in the medical history where patients where wrong treated due to exchange of reports (Ancker, 2013). The room for error in healthcare with IT is close to zero. All the data is available at one place. Patients past records are readily available to best assess the patient. The labor and time consumption is reduced (Dogac, 2014). The major risk with IT loss of data since all the files are stored on a server. Hence, it is crucial to back up and achieve data regularly. Data security is given high priority as all the records have to be confidential (Anthony, 2013). Sunshine Inc. plans to have a dedicated IT wing that would implement, maintain and monitor all its IT equipment, to ensure that the systems are up and running at all times and are free from security breachs. 6. Conclusion Information Technology helps in digitizing data due to which the data can be easily stored, retrieved and manipulated. Every business in todays world adapt IT services in one form or the other to reap the advantages of IT especially its ability to reduce data redundancy, easy store and retrieve and reduction in manual errors. The same features have lead IT to revolutionize the healthcare industry as well. 7. References Ancker, J.S., Silver, M., Miller, M.C. and Kaushal, R., 2013. Consumer experience with and attitudes toward health information technology: a nationwide survey. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 20(1), pp.152-156. Anthony, D., Campbell, A.T., Candon, T., Gettinger, A., Kotz, D., Marsch, L.A., Molina-Markham, A., Page, K., Smith, S.W., Gunter, C.A. and Johnson, M.E., 2013. Securing information technology in healthcare. IEEE security privacy, 11(6), p.25. Bardhan, I.R. and Thouin, M.F., 2013. Health information technology and its impact on the quality and cost of healthcare delivery. Decision Support Systems, 55(2), pp.438-449. Devaraj, S., Ow, T.T. and Kohli, R., 2013. Examining the impact of information technology and patient flow on healthcare performance: A Theory of Swift and Even Flow (TSEF) perspective. Journal of Operations Management, 31(4), pp.181-192. Dogac, A., Yuksel, M., Ertrkmen, G.L., Kabak, Y., Namli, T., Yldz, M.H., Ay, Y., Ceyhan, B., Hlr, ., ztrk, H. and Atbakan, E., 2014. Healthcare information technology infrastructures in Turkey. Yearbook of medical informatics, 9(1), p.228. Hwang, Y., Lee, Y. and Shin, D.H., 2016. The role of goal awareness and information technology self-efficacy on job satisfaction of healthcare system users. Behaviour Information Technology, pp.1-11. Kohli, R., Devaraj, S. and Ow, T.T., 2012. Does information technology investment influence a firm's market value? A case of non-publicly traded healthcare firms. MIS Quarterly, 36(4), pp.1145-1163. Smith, S.W. and Koppel, R., 2014. Healthcare information technology's relativity problems: a typology of how patients' physical reality, clinicians' mental models, and healthcare information technology differ. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 21(1), pp.117-131.