The subject of the case study is a hospital that uses an intranet to aid in the making of decisions and also carrying out internal auditing.
In the use of the intranet all the personnel that carry out their activities in the hospital are served and especially the top management of the hospital, the hospital uses an information management system and their intra net is built to complement the Information system in the accounts department the (AIS) specifically as means of decision support system application which is used for performance indicators and which aids the top managers of the hospital.
Computer based controls are used to survey the malfunctions of the software and also indicators of performance are initiated so as to state the effectiveness of every department and also the ultimate performance of the entire hospital. It contains queries in the database of the Accounting Information System (Labrso, 2011).
This system does produce a wide range of results in form of reports that include monitors and indicators that analyze medical and also drug resources, debit and credits for the customers, the guidelines of clinic practice, procedures and schedules of surgeries, comparison of the policy of the patient policy on daily basis and also reports and forms that are online, view of each doctor’s performance in regard to their patients and the clinics is also made part of the system’s output.
Distinguishing between invoiced and the non-invoiced revenues and also analysis regarding of the receivables which are related to patients and also related to institutions of social security and companies of insurance. This is the main data that is found inside the Intranet.
The information system is designed to fit in to the nature of the structure of the hospital that includes that fact that the hospital covers an area of about 55,000 Meter squared, containing clinics and also outpatient service clinics with various specialties, installed within the state of the art equipment, the hospital has about one thousand four hundred employees, of whom two hundred are distinguished physicians and many leading freelancers.
The facility is equipped with about 300 beds within the clinics, 25 rooms of operation, thirty eight ICU beds, twenty four unit beds for offering dialysis and 78 on a day basis nursing beds. hospital works as a charity, foundation that is non-profit, giving vital care that is both primary and secondary in its society (Labrso, 2011).
With the kind of structure that the hospital has, various information systems that is flexible and also integrated, makes it vital for any given private or even public organization that is in search of offering modern, effective health services and also remain competitive. The hospital has an information system that is separate, connecting to various databases that give support to numerous applications.
For instance there is one that analyzes the test from the lab Information system, in short its (LIS), there is one for the administrative purposes that include the admission of the patients, the clinics’ enrollment and also the dismissals that are given, the accounting billing, HR transactions and also application for the medicine over the telephony, separate servers for the email and also the internet, to add to this there is the user applications that are individual based that are developed for the sake of appointments in regard to the clinic of the outpatient service, there is an application that supports charges imposed on the inpatient service, and also an application that is able to calculate the voucher billing, the results are then handed to the insurance companies and funds (Labrso, 2011)..
Major Internal and external users of the information
The hospital’s organisaitonal chart was designed without any influence from the IT department by the quality Assurance, the in corroborations with the IT department with the Quality Assurances team embarked on the process of designing models to be installed in the various sections like the admission office of Patients, the outpatient service, pharmaceutical service and the procurement department.
The IT and the quality Assurance team worked to be able to conform to the International Standard Organization 9000. Information requirements rising from the Accounting department lead to the birth of the department of internal control (Labrso, 2011).
The user of the information can be derived form the hospital’s organization chart beginning with the , the president’s Office, branching into the General director’s office and the Press room, in the General’s directors office is attached the Legal department, From the General Director’s office it branches into the medical service Division, Nursing service Division, administrative Service Division, from the Administrative service Division there is the Managing Director’s Office, in the managing Director’s office there is the Quality assurance department, The IT department, Internal Auditing Department.
The management used information obtained from various sections and mostly the Accounting department to be able to make necessary decisions, the management also uses the information system to be able to measure the efficiency of the subsections and individual performance of medical practitioners(Labrso, 2011)..
The work of the Auditing department is to give report on the performance and financial indicators by the use of queries developed from the relational database (Labrso, 2011)..
Medical personal used the information system to be to manage their schedules in regard to patients
Major external users of the information form the hospital are the Insurance fund companies and the National social security organizations and the international Standards organization (ISO).
Decision Support System
In the department of internal auditing in regard to the intranet it is able to produce statistic relating to the financial and performance reports on a daily basis, monthly and yearly.
The information required by the management of the hospital and the director of finance are analyzed by team that does the reporting, these reports do contain basic information of day to day operation that has information regarding patients and financial accounts and especially for the medical practitioners their performance is analyzed on the software then rated, in categories of the doctor that is recommended ,therapist doctor and doctor of execution based on charges founds on their patients’ invoices.
The Accounting Inforamtion System does analyze data that is concerned with the hospital’s revenues, by making clear the deference between the revenue in total, to the non-invoiced and invoiced in relation to the different categories of the hospital’s patients dependent on fund whether still under hospitalization or not and whether they are in or out patient (Labrso, 2011).
Information here is generated speedily and effectively, this information is vital to setting of objectives and goals of the Hospital.
Business Cycles
Business cycles in the hospital are all interrelated at some point. Report from the various systems does produces information for the management and also the external parties this cycles include the.
Transactions between doctors and their clients which is the source of revenue (revenue cycle), the invoices are input into the general ledger where the entire transactions are summed up on daily, weekly, monthly and on yearly bases, this provides funds to the financing cycle the financing cycle, cycle is able to provide the payroll for the Human resource and the procurements of necessary medical resources, reports form the general ledger are used by major external users of the information, for example the Insurance company, national security Organization, also the financing institutions like banks use the Report from the general ledger to analyze their accounting records are also used by the management to be able to lay the organization’s goals
Hospital strategy
The strategy of the hospital is to become competitive by simply being efficient and utilizing its resources maximally, the hospital encourages competitiveness without compromising the quality of services that it offers. In application of the accounting information system does indeed track the Accounts, medical resources, monitor the efficiency of its personnel which ensures quality of service, competitiveness
Reference
Labrso.K. Using the Hospital Intranet for Decision Support and Internal Auditing. Greece: Athens University of Economics & Business, Department of Accounting & Finance, (2011)