Improving Workflow Process for Performance Improvement for Discharge Processing

In a broad sense, workflow is the collection of activities sequentially into process steps and the group of personnel or facilities required to complete these activities to achieve a certain objective. The workflow of an institution is made up of the procedures that must be completed, the individuals or other resources that are accessible to conduct those tasks, and the connections between them. Like those in other sectors, some processes in medical services are created, whereas others emerge spontaneously and develop. The processes and techniques used by businesses to achieve certain objectives vary greatly. Some organizational workflows appear to be less complicated compared to others (Topol, 2019).  Whenever the workflow systems are studied in isolation, they might look quite sensible (and even cost-effective) in their activities to reach the end goal. Complexity arises from the interplay of the systems. A few of those connections disguise conflicts in the aims of distinct sections within an institution, including what the health professional personnel wants is responsible for versus the medical department and its timetable (Al-Turkistani et al., 2021). Institutions also change their workflows to accommodate the changing surroundings.

The changes I would recommend to accomplish my goals in the given scenarios are these; Reduce the workflow procedure the waiting time from 7 days to 5 days by combining the operations from the fourth to seventh days into two days. This will aid in the decrease of waiting time, and the clinicians shall be pleased by having a reduced waiting time for the procedures. Chart coding, assembly, and chart assessment will be completed on the fourth day (Abrams et al., 2017). On the fifth day, quality indication conceptualizing and chart forwarding to the unfinished chart room or permanent file will be completed. This change will aid in a more robust strategy to the procedure, allowing it to be done quicker. We can reduce the time it takes to fill loose content in the chart procedure from three days to one day, reducing the lead period and allowing this process to be completed in one day. This time reform will assist in expediting the procedure.

After the changes are made, they will positively or negatively impact the institution and its workers. The positive impacts expected are;

• The process will have been generally improved, and thus the physicians will enjoy working, and their performance may be improved due to their satisfaction.
• The changes will affect the charting work because the work will get accomplished within a shorter lead time than the last time consumed, leading to improvement in operational efficiency.
• The changes will be advantageous to the employees and the patients because of lower lead times.

The negative impacts expected following the changes will be;

• The changes will affect the process, and therefore it will create additional workload on the employees, thus calling the balancing of the workload of the employees.
• Again, there is a possibility that part of the loose substance fillings will be left unfilled on the chart, which might have a detrimental effect on the process results.
• Because of the inconvenience caused by the adjustment, we should expect lower acceptability from the operational team.

There following are ways through which I can diminish the impact of any negative outcomes identified;

• Workload balancing will be necessary so that staff do not feel overburdened and are motivated to implement the planned modifications.
• We must create a process to guarantee that loose material fillers are not left behind and double verification.
• Training classes will be planned to boost the team’s commitment, willingness and adoption of the suggested adjustments.

References

Abrams, K., Carlon, S., Haugen, M. B., Mancilla, D., McElroy, K., Millen, M., Sandefer, R., Sharp, M., & Sorensen, L. (2017). HIM reimagined outlines bold new future for HIM profession. Journal of AHIMA, 88(6), 22–25.

Al-Turkistani, H. F., Aldobaian, S., & Latif, R. (2021). Enterprise Architecture Frameworks Assessment: Capabilities, Cyber Security and Resiliency Review. 2021 1st International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics (CAIDA), 79–84.

Topol, E. J. (2019). High-performance medicine: The convergence of human and artificial intelligence. Nature Medicine, 25(1), 44–56.