Mental Health Information System Implementation in the Rouge Valley Health System

Abstract

The adoption of electronic information systems is globally seen as one of the important strategies for improvement of quality of care, preventing medical errors, and reducing costs and delays. In order to improve quality of healthcare for mental health patients, the Rouge Valley Health System (RVHS) planned to implement an electronic information system called Mental Health Information System (MHIS) in its mental health program. The MHIS development was contracted with the HInext, the vendor of another information system which is already in use in the mental health program for collection of consolidated mental health data. The HInext needed business process maps for all disciplines, and functional and system requirements in order to develop the MHIS. The author was hired by the RVHS for process mapping of all disciplines in the mental health program. Business process maps were created for all disciplines except physicians and crisis teams. Some disciplines such as physicians and outpatient department did not support the project. Physicians were not ready to provide information for process mapping nor did they have interest in the attendance of information and communication technology training, which was intended for the computer- illiterate physicians. The outpatient department manager was also reluctant to cooperate until the former project leader returned from maternity leave and used her influence to encourage her for cooperation. The MHIS project is facing serious leadership and project management challenges. This internship report will describe the process of business process mapping, information diagrams, leadership and management problems in the MHIS project, challenges of health information system implementation in the literature and recommended solutions for successful development of the MHIS in the RVHS.