© 2020 Walden University 1

NURS 6441

Oak Township Medical Center Case Study

Oak Township Medical Center (OTMC) in Georgia, a 600-bed hospital, has expanded
significantly over the past 3 years. In an effort to respond to the increased workload of
all hospital staff, the chief information officer (CIO) and the vice president of patient care
services (VP-PCS) at OTMC determined the need to analyze hospital processes
throughout the organization.

The OTMC organizational analysis revealed a number of areas that needed
improvement. At the same time, broad changes in regulatory requirements required
immediate adjustments in processes.

The organizational analysis was conducted across all departments and found the
following organization-wide issues:

 Quality reviews discovered a hospital-wide medication administration error rate of
20% with some tasks identified as redundant tasks.

 Complying with new federal reporting requirements has increased the time
needed to complete the medication administration process.

OTMC responded to the problem by purchasing an enterprise-wide healthcare
information system (HIS) from Topmost, one of the leading enterprise-software vendors
in the country. The functionality of the system directly addresses the medication
administration issues found in the organizational analysis. Several modules of an
electronic health record system (EHRS) have already been implemented, as shown in
the table below. As an employee of Topmost, you are charged with implementing this
medication administration system (MAS) for OTMC, the final phase of the EHRS
project. This MAS includes an electronic medication administration record (eMAR),
Barcode Medication Administration (BCMA), and physical administration of medication.
Note: For the remainder of this scenario, this whole process will be referred to as the
Medication Administration System (MAS).

Module Implementation Status

Module in the HIS
System

Status of Module Implementation

Fully
implemented

Partially
implemented

In pilot Not yet
implemented

ADT (Accounting System) X

Order Entry/Results
Reporting OE/RR)

X

Billing and Financials X

Ambulatory and Acute
Care Clinical

X

© 2020 Walden University 2

Module in the HIS
System

Status of Module Implementation

Fully
implemented

Partially
implemented

In pilot Not yet
implemented

Documentation System

Laboratory X

Medication Administration
System (MAS)

X

Note that the MAS module has not been implemented.

The CIO and VP-PCS relate that there are a number of challenges associated with the
OTMC HIS program, including the MAS project. One risk is that the initial
implementation of the MAS may result in a temporary increase in medication errors.
Another risk is that staff resistance to the new workflows and processes brought about
by the MAS may cause delays in the completion of the implementation.

In meetings with the CIO and VP, they state that the first task is to develop the project
charter. The MAS team is assigned specific elements to be included in the project
charter: the mission of the project, the problem statement, the project objectives, key
stakeholders, milestones, and risks for the project.

A new chief medical information officer (CMIO) has been hired. This CMIO does not
have the informatics expertise required to lead this critical and large project; however,
the CMIO has gained solid experience on small-scale decision-support projects at a
former institution while studying informatics in graduate school. The CMIO is looking
forward to learning from you.

The budget for the MAS project is approved up to $1 million. If more than $1 million is
needed to implement the project, the additional expenditure must be justified in a project
plan that key stakeholders approve. The software application for the MAS and
necessary hardware have already been purchased, but they have not been delivered.
You have a timeline of 6 months to complete the MAS project.