Enterprise Information Architecture Reference Architecture
United States Government has legislated electronic health record which will provide advantages to customers and medical health providers. The management and maintenance will facilitate data integration and data sharing among medical health providers. A design is required by Australian Government to accomplish electronic health record development. The report presents description on benefits of an architecture called Enterprise Information Architecture Reference Architecture that will help in developing electronic health record (Da Xu 2014). This is achieved through processes that are in analytic way, assumed to be tried and true methods. Enterprise Information Architecture Reference Architecture approach helps to provide a design to develop building blocks from basic to more detailed building blocks for any system. This architecture helps an organization to manage a project from beginning to end where the project is created, maintained, used and governed through their life cycle from perspective of bottom-up. Enterprise Information Architecture Reference Architecture is an architecture that helps to provide view in an information-centric way of the Enterprise Architecture (Giachetti 2016). The purpose of this report is to present an analysis of benefits and challenges of Enterprise Information Architecture Reference Architecture to develop electronic health record.
The outline is use of template of Enterprise Information Architecture Reference Architecture for electronic health record. The templates are conceptual architecture, logical architecture, component relationship picture, component interaction picture, operational picture. The first part involves benefits of Enterprise Information Architecture Reference Architecture and second part involves challenges of data managing and integrating.
Enterprise Information Architecture Reference Architecture
The advantages provided by Enterprise Information Architecture Reference Architecture for developing electronic health record are as follows.
- Correspondence of enterprise-The storing of information in various locations in form of distributed database and conflicting. This approach helps two information s to use and understand each other’s characteristics and functionality. The interoperability approach of enterprise helps to provides services between different information, exchange and communicate (Romero and Vernadat 2016). The benefits provided by Enterprise Information Architecture Reference Architecture are at three different levels that are data, services and processes.
- Incorporation of enterprise-The objective of electronic health record is achieved by the help of Enterprise Information Architecture Reference Architecture approach where communication between components of enterprises is ensured. The approach of integration of enterprise is accomplished at different levels in different ways. This approach includes integration of physical, business and application layer. The first layer that is physical integration consists of interconnection of devices and machines that are connected (Cabrera et al. 2016). The second layer that is business integration consists of management, monitoring and to control business functions and processes. The added layer of integration is enterprise modelling that helps to accomplish persistent decision making.
- Managing and interaction-The internal and external workforce involved with the electronic health record development who accomplish tasks with their respective channels of delivery and its presentation methods and services (Lapalme et al. 2016). This approach provides electronic health record’s operation and functionality.
- Data elements of enterprise-This approach of Enterprise Information Architecture Reference Architecture is helpful in providing accurate response through a particular single source and accurate details at the correct time to EHR central department (Rouhani et al. 2015). The metadata services, master data services, operational data and content data that is unstructured are central which is benefited by the single approach of data domains. The enterprise integration helps to achieve central services’ integration and enterprise management.
The whole requirement of an electronic health record planned by Federal government of Australia are determined by conceptual architecture which is an essential part of Enterprise Information Architecture Reference Architecture. The conceptualism is used by this architecture which is characterized through various ideas and concepts introduced from electronic health record development architecture (Whittle and Myrick 2016). The development of electronic health record is illustrated by architecture overview picture given in this report. The picture of basic building blocks for electronic health record development are given to illustrate the basis entities, components and their relationships. The building blocks serves as a foundation for the development of architecture overview picture to develop electronic health record.
The picture given below illustrates electronic health record and its features. This shows that it acts as an individual entity which basically concentrates on aspects of health providers and clients. According to the picture, the government is the primary layer in basic building blocks that shows it important part in the electronic health record development (Chorafas 2016). Finally, the last layer shows the outcome of basic building blocks for electronic health record development and the outcome is improvement in health department. The next is architecture overview picture that is the next phase of basic building block.
Benefits and Challenges of EIA RA for Developing EHR System
Figure 1: Basic blocks
(Source: Created by author)
The different concepts necessary for delivery of electronic health record are illustrated by architecture overview picture. The functional and operational capabilities of electronic health record are determined by architecture overview picture. The formation of architecture overview picture is accomplished as per the necessity of electronic health record. The architecture overview picture illustrates the entities and components for developing electronic health record. The existing and current EHR to interact and presentation of services is provided by the architecture overview picture (Mayer et al. 2016). The architecture overview picture provides data services and integration of services consisting of privacy and security services. The functional and operational capabilities to accomplish objectives of electronic health record. The objectives are improving safety of patients, providing secure environment, managing sensitive data related to patients and doctor, and facilitation of data sharing and integration.
Figure 2: Architecture Overview Picture
(Source: Created by author)
The technically feasible functionality are provided by logical architecture for delivery of electronic health record development. The picture in this report shows primary aspects and relationships among them that illustrates the logical view of the entities of electronic health record development. The groups are engineers and framework modelers that are intended groups related with the logical view picture for developing components of electronic health record system.
The effectiveness of requirements of enterprise are illustrate by logical view picture given in this report. The requirements of end users/entities are illustrated in the picture to show the features and functions necessary for developing electronic health record (Dang and Pekkola 2017). The data warehouse is used for broadcasting and giving the required data as input for the whole operation of the system. The picture shows incorporation of planning, budget, requirements, designing and related data which are determined by users in data warehouse for electronic health record development. The primary objective of logical view is to accomplish the required objective for patients and healthcare providers in development of electronic health record system.
Figure 3: Logical View
(Source: Created by author)
The relationships between various component, interfaces and entities are illustrated by component relationship picture which helps in electronic health record development. The various components as shown in the component relationship picture are easily inspected by the developer in evaluating and understanding the necessary functionality and working method. The component relationship picture is the result of logical view and architectural overview combining together (Zarvi? and Wieringa 2014). Thus this picture shows relationships of various components and interfaces in the system. These picture delivers logical functions through the connection of components. In component relationship picture only the components, Information Co-Production Hub and Collaboration Hub differ from Enterprise Information Architecture Reference Architecture that are described in component relationship picture.
Conceptual Architecture and Basic Building Blocks
Figure 4: Component Relationship Picture
(Source: Created by author)
The pictorial view are presented by component interaction picture that is used as an essential part for electronic health record development. The interactions of components are depicted in component interaction picture in the system that are required in development of electronic health record (Nelson and Staggers 2016). A sequence of messages are shown in component interaction picture that depicts the sequence of interaction of components that is required to achieve goals.
Figure 5: Component Interaction Picture
(Source: Created by author)
The distribution of various components across the geographically distributed nodes are depicted by operational model. The formulation of operational model is combination of component relationship picture and component interaction picture. The components are breakup into functional components and non-functional components which are used for further in the process of electronic health record development (Marceglia et al. 2015). These breakup is done to suit the requirements of the customer in implementation of electronic health record. The operational activities related with the final outcome against the operational model data collected is shown by the operational model for electronic health record development. The primary aspects of electronic health record development are front office s, head office and disaster recovery events.
Figure 6: Operational Model
(Source: Created by author)
The above described approach of Enterprise Information Architecture Reference Architecture for electronic health record development shows that there are challenges faced for integration and management of data. These challenges are given in the following points.
- Challenges in implementing the system- There are several barriers in developing and implementing electronic health record. The first barrier is budget of developing electronic health record (Rezaeibagha, Win and Susilo 2015). The second barrier is deployment of electronic health record which requires extensive expertise. The third barrier is privacy and security in developing electronic health record. The central barriers are managing and maintaining electronic health record. The other barriers poses challenges poses data breach risks.
- Challenges in learning the system- The learning and understanding of electronic health record is necessary to develop electronic health record as it is the most important factor. The patients and healthcare providers require understanding and learning of the system to use the system efficiently and effectively (Kaushik and Raman 2015). The participation of patients and healthcare providers is hindered by the lack of knowledge and understanding of the system.
- Challenges due to unfamiliarity of the system- The unfamiliarity towards the system and its use poses challenges as stakeholders are often unwilling to try the system (Hsiao, Hing and Ashman 2014). The automatic delivery from electronic health record may not be as expected from electronic health record.
- Maintaining quality of the system- The enterprise interoperability, necessities for measuring clinical quality and engagement of patient with electronic health record poses challenges for the implementation of the system. The maintenance of quality reporting poses challenges due to the responding to the input given to the system (Jamoom, Yang and Hing 2016). This can be explained as when the input data is not accurate then the electronic health record may respond in a different way. Thus posing challenges in electronic health record development.
- Challenges in Interoperability of system- The treatment received by patients at two different locations where the treatments are different from each other provided by the same electronic health record (Sittig and Singh 2018). The services provided for patient-centered and coordination are also the challenges that hinder in the development and implementation of electronic health record.
The below given possible strategies for the above given challenges of electronic health records are as follows.
- The assurance of adequate components and resources involved with the implementation of electronic health record are necessary for efficiency and effectiveness of the system.
- The executive management should be involved and implementation of effective and efficient controls should be done in order to mitigate the challenges of the system.
- The selection of appropriate vendor and their scope is necessary to benefit the development of electronic health record system.
- The negotiation of phased implementation that are utilized for the system prior to its start and whole phases of the system.
- The preparation and pre-preparation is necessary to mitigate current risks and future risks when new changes are introduced during the development and after the development of the system.
Conclusion
From the above discussions it can be concluded that electronic health record is an integral part in health sector which are utilizing its full potential to improve their services. Enterprise Information Architecture Reference Architecture is used in this report to develop electronic health record as proposed by the Australian Federal Government. The report shows various pictures related to Enterprise Information Architecture Reference Architecture that are useful for providing an initial view of requirements and process in development of electronic health record . Enterprise Information Architecture Reference Architecture benefits presented in this report shows that the architecture is essential to achieve the objectives of developing the system. The illustrations provided by various pictures shown in this report provide detailed analysis of electronic health record development. However, the challenges need to be taken into account to minimize the risks involved in electronic health record development. Therefore, the possible strategies are provided in this report to tackle the challenges of electronic health record development.
Architecture Overview Picture
The recommendations for achieving the effective and efficient electronic health record development through the use of Enterprise Information Architecture Reference Architecture are as follows.
- Manager identification-The development and management of project is necessary to implement the system with effective and efficient project manager that can handle the system.
- System awareness-The EHR awareness is necessary to encourage patients and healthcare providers to participate in the implementation of the system and its usage.
- Leadership management-The development of EHR requires effective leadership management to achieve the goals and objectives of the system.
- Utilization of correct resources-The correct resources are the primary requirements for the development of EHR as it is integral for efficiency of the system.
- Training to workforce-The training to staff is necessary to develop the system and use it as it will help for future prospective.
References
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