As with everything else in life, there seems to be no shortage of challenges scattered throughout the tasks and processes you perform to achieve specific healthcare outcomes.

As with everything else in life, there seems to be no shortage of challenges scattered throughout the tasks and processes you perform to achieve specific healthcare outcomes. Encountering and identifying challenges often are easier than determining how to fix them. If you do not plan your solution carefully, the actions you take could have little or no effect or they could possibly make matters worse.

For this Assignment, you apply what you learned in prior weeks about workflow issues and processes for developing strategies for improvement to a specific workflow issue related to electronic health records (EHRs) within a professional scenario with which you are familiar or one that you create.

• Identify the workflow issue you would like to explore throughout your Course Project. This should be a specific task about which you have sufficient content knowledge and access to describe and analyze in detail. Your workflow issue MUST be related to EHRs and be significantly tied to one or more meaningful use objectives. The workflow issue may be related to either the optimization of an existing EHR system or the implementation of an entirely new EHR system. If you do not have a professional scenario to use, you may create one or ask a colleague for ideas.
• Establish your goals for conducting your gap analysis. These goals describe why you are conducting the gap analysis, the workflow issue you are pinpointing, and what you hope to accomplish in examining this issue.
• Determine how you will collect data about the current workflow you are exploring for the Course Project. For example, you may choose to observe people as they move through the workflow, ask people about their experiences, confer with managers and leaders about their involvement, refer to your organization’s training manual or other informative documents, etc. Be sure to use more than one data collection method and observe or consult with more than one person to ensure that the information you gather is balanced.
• As you write your paper, begin drafting the current-state workflow based on your preliminary knowledge (no outside information needed) in Microsoft Word or the diagramming software of your choice. Include swimlanes showing, to the best of your knowledge, who is responsible for each step in the workflow.

The Assignment: Gap Analysis Plan (3–4 pages)

Write a 3- to 4-page Gap Analysis Plan that addresses the following: 

• Introduce the workflow issue you will be addressing in this Assignment. Explain how this workflow issue is tied to EHRs. Identify the specific meaningful use objective(s) related to the workflow issue.
• Analyze the workflow issue IOM six aims of care (patient-centered, timely, effective, efficient, equitable, and safe). 
• List 2–3 goals you have set for your gap analysis and what you hope to accomplish by examining the workflow concern you selected. 
• Describe your methods of data collection and the individuals you will observe, consult, and/or interview. Include any relevant narrative statements, checklists, interview questions, or other tools you commonly use to collect data in a workflow analysis. 
• Explain how you will minimize disruption in the workflow during observations and how you will avoid bias as you conduct your gap analysis. 
• Describe how you will record, quantify, and analyze the data you collect. Explain how you will establish baseline metrics to normalize data from different sources of information. 
• Illustrate your current-state workflow. Your draft should include your preliminary knowledge about the primary steps and activities within your workflow. In addition, include a swimlane (flowchart) showing who is responsible for each step, and use the appropriate diagramming symbols within your draft. Copy and paste your actual visual model into your paper (rather than providing a link to the model).
• Support your plan by synthesizing and integrating at least two outside resources and two of the provided Resources. Include a reference list with APA-formatted citations of the resources you used. 

For the workflow diagram, you do need swim lanes. Use Lucid Chart as it is free and you can create swim lanes.