Healthcare Case

Case Study One

A major problem that healthcare would have if everyone became electronic is that there is not one simple program that would be compatible nationwide. This would make it difficult for all healthcare providers and insurance companies to be interactive at all times and there is a lot of challenges involved in making a system compatible for all (Loudin & Loudin, 2013).

The government felt so strongly about one compatible system for making all medical records electronic that they decided to provide stimulus money through the American Recovery and Stimulus Act. The problem is that although this gives medical providers receive bonus money for timely implementing this system, it penalizes them if they do not. Also, the program only provides a small portion of the money up front so there are still many small providers who just cannot afford the program. If a medical provider spends $30,000 to $50,000 for a program, and the system is poor designed, which it was found to be, then the provider just threw away money they did not have (p. 37).

The bad part of not computerizing medical records is that the cost of health care will continue to rise. As this rise continues it is said that it will eventually consume almost 40% of the total federal spending money that is available for healthcare. This is a cost that will fall back on the nation in the form of higher premiums for healthcare. Electronic records will enable doctors to be able to immediately respond to an emergency with any given patient. Care will be improved and errors will be reduced with will actually save money.

I do not believe this system will work in its current state. I think there will continue to be individuals who are worried that their personal information will become available and that their right to privacy regarding their personal health will be violated. This is especially true because the system is so poorly designed.

Case Study Two

Businesses have found that employees are often slow to come around to change. Switching to internal social networks is often not accepted by employees because they want to continue using what they have always used. There is often the feeling that there is no need for any new technology on the job. Further, employees often do not have time to learn new technologies at work.

CSC implemented Jive's Social Business Software. They successful because instead of trying to force the change on their employees they first did a 6 month pilot program. This allowed the employees to become involved in the implementation process. When someone feels involved in changes that affect them there is often more acceptance to the change. In CSC there has been 100% employee of this new implementation (p. 76).

Yum! Brands has 35,000 restaurants around the world. They also use Jive as their social networking system. There system allowed their employees to be able to communicate from whatever location they are in the world giving them a sense of actually belonging to the company they work for rather being excluded simply because they are in another region of the world.

Red Robin Hamburgers uses a social networking software called Yammer. They have not received as much success with employee usage up to this point but the company is not giving up and continue to provide incentives for employees to use Yammer. Den Mat is a small company and they chose to use Salesforce because their information system was so outdated. They were actually one of the lucky ones because they experienced an immediate rise in productivity when they incorporated this software (p. 77).

I think all companies can benefit from an internal enterprise social network. Management would be able to keep an open line of communication and keep team members informed of any changes. Managers would also be able to assign and reassign jobs to create a more cohesive and productive crew. Because documents would be located in one place they would be easy to find and everyone would be able to access a general company calendar with important dates and appointments. The networking system does not have elaborate but all companies should have one.

Case Study Three

Starbucks edge with the competitive forces model is that barriers of entry are medium-high. Starbucks, like any other business had to start somewhere is there nothing stopping another company from doing the same thing (What is Starbucks edge, 2011). There is a high threat of substitutes. Even though Starbucks customers tend to be loyal there are always other places that sell the same coffee. There is a high power of buyers. When someone is buying coffee at Starbucks someone else is buying the same coffee