64801 QUALITY ASSURANCE IN HEALTHCARE: A THREE-STAGE VALUE-ADDED SYSTEMS FRAMEWORK Elham Mousavidin University of St. Thomas 3800 Montrose Houston, Texas 77006 713-942-5914 mousave@stthom.edu Lakshmi Goel One UNF Drive Jacksonville, FL 32224 904-620-2974 l.goel@unf.edu ABSTRACT The goal of this research is to focus on quality assurance in healthcare as a multi-level concept and show how systems can be used for holistic quality assurance. We do so by providing a theoretical three-stage value-added framework to study the impact of Information systems on healthcare quality assurance. Keywords: Operations, Quality Assurance, Healthcare, Information Systems, Prescription ordering INTRODUCTION The recent focus on the healthcare industry has brought to light drawbacks and inconsistencies in healthcare services that have negative outcomes ranging from inconvenience to fatalities. According to the CIA World Factbook, at a life expectancy of 78.49 years, the United States ranks 50th in the world. The same source ranked the United States 174th of 222 in the world for infant mortality rate. Between 1997 and 2003, preventable deaths declined slower in the United States than in 18 other industrialized nations (Nolte and McKee, 2008). A 2008 study found that 101,000 deaths per year in the U.S. could have been prevented had the healthcare system been as effective as that of France, Japan, or Australia (Dunham, 2008). In 2000, The World Health Organization (WHO) ranked the U.S. healthcare system 37th in overall performance and 72nd by overall level of health among 191 member nations included in the study (WHO, 2000). The aggressive push to improve healthcare services, particularly in the area of quality assurance (QA), is hence no surprise. Initiatives at the government, sectoral, community, and institutional levels are aimed at enhancing quality assurance in healthcare. These initiatives often involve considerable financial outlays, and substantial efforts on behalf of all stakeholders involved. Despite the focus on improving quality, research has failed to find evidence of the impact of quality improvement measures on healthcare costs (Rauh et al., 2011). Hence there is a critical need to study how quality assurance initiatives can be successful, and can result in maximum value derived for the stakeholders. One category of initiatives involves the implementation and institutionalization of information systems (IS) in healthcare services. These include initiatives such as the electronic medical