he implementation of the ACA means that there are thousands more patients coming into local health systems. There is also a trend of larger heath care delivery systems acquiring and/or affiliating with smaller hospitals and physicians to leverage economies of scale to meet regulatory requirements and secure the share of local markets. These trends often mean that health care leaders must examine information systems strategies at a macro organizational level and make key vendor decisions about which HIT solutions to maintain and grow or eliminate as a part of overall systems integration planning.

One of the key decisions that leaders face is whether to bundle financial (registration, scheduling, and billing) information systems along with clinical (EMR) systems in monolithic vendor strategies or whether to spread risk and have varied HIT vendor partners for clinical and business solutions while implementing an interface solution.

To prepare:

Read the Learning Resources and research references regarding IT strategies, specifically best of breed and monolithic vendor systems used to achieve integration.

Consider private payers including pay for performance bundled payments as discussed in the Dynamic Scenario in Week 4. How do private payers play into your thinking about clinical and financial information systems strategies?

Post:

A recommendation of either a best of breed or monolithic systems integration strategy. Justify your recommendation. Evaluate the issues involved in each. Describe how private payers play into your thinking about clinical and financial information systems strategies. Describe the role of vendor/client site relationships in these types of decisions. Support your rationale with references.