New CenturyWellness Group

New Century Wellness Group offers a holistic approach to healthcare with an emphasis on preventive medicine as well as traditional medical care. In your role as an IT consultant, you will help New Century develop a new information system.

Background

New Century asked you to perform a preliminary investigation for a new business support system. You had several meetings with Dr. Jones to discuss office records and accounting systems. Anita Davenport, New Century's office manager, participated in those meetings. You also completed a project management plan for New Century. Now, you are ready to develop a system requirements model. In the preliminary investigation report, you recommended a detailed analysis of four key areas: patient scheduling, billing and accounts receivable, human resources, and payroll. Because these areas are highly interactive, you suggested that an integrated system would provide the greatest benefits. Dr. Jones and the partners agreed, but they also expressed interest in a medical practice support system and asked whether the business support system could be expanded. After research and analysis, you concluded that medical practice support should be a separate system to be considered in New Century's long-term strategic plans. Because future integration would be very important, the business support system design should be compatible with a future medical practice support system. In your meetings with Dr. Jones and Anita, you stressed that IT projects are much more successful when users have a sense of ownership, and the best way to create that "buy-in" is to get them involved in the development process. In your view, joint application development would be ideal method to develop the new system, and everyone agrees. Your next task is to form a JAD team and conduct the requirements modeling process.

Tasks

1. Review the organization chart you prepared in Chapter 1 and determine who should be on the JAD team, and why. Also, how will you create a sense of team ownership from the start?

2. You may be given a standard set of interview summaries, or you may conduct role-play interviews. Either way, use the information to complete Tasks 3 and 4.

3. Develop a checklist that includes several requirements for system output, input, process, performance, and control.

4. Design a questionnaire to learn how New Century patients feel about insurance procedures and appointment scheduling. Your questionnaire should be designed for a sample group of patients, and should follow the suggestions in this chapter. After you complete the questionnaire, select a sampling method and explain your choice.