Case Study: Healthy Hospital Staff Payment System Troubles

Organisation Dealing Strategy with the Issues

Discuss about the Case Study for Healthy Hospital Staff.

The situation has been based on how the Healthy Hospital staff was having problems related to the slow payments to their account. With the old system software, there were certain degradations and the customisations. As per the regulatory changes and the market factors with the macroeconomic conditions, there is a fall in the annual profits which has been declining from $3M in 2005 to $1M in 2010. With this, there have been vendors who complained about the slowing down of the payments. Hence, a permanent account department person was hired for a full-time. But with this, there were some suspicious large cash disbursements which were entirely uncovered by him. Hence, a proper information security needs to be installed in the systems of the hospital so that there have been no problems with the security and the virus. (Struther et al., 2015). The technology and the management control will be able to handle the employees to illustrate the professional guidance and other principle effects.  

As per the analysis of the case study, it is found that there have been certain internal controls and the red flags of the fraud, detected in the information system. Considering about how Downs was interviewing Harris for becoming the assistant employee to handle the finance of the hospital. Initially, there were issues as Harris was only hired for the temporary time and so his identification and the background was not investigated. But with time, it was found that Harris has been involved in the illegal activity as his family members had a suspicious history in the hospital. (Mselle et al., 2015). Hence, a red flag came into the introduction for the implementation of the documented plan with the protection of the consumers from identification of theft.  

There was a discussion of nepotism issue in the financial account procedures that were directly related to the accounts payable department. With this, when the vendor was identified, there was assurance by the account payable manager for the updating of all the necessary data to make sure that there is a timely and accurate proceeding. This will help in reviewing the data file for the accuracy and the completeness. Harris was nowhere asked the questions as he was able to present his philanthropic work to the HH.  (MSellet et al., 2015).

The strengthening involves the changing of the attitude of the employees. The sole responsibility is to ferret the wrong doings with the breaking of the rules, personal and the professional procedures. The strengthening of the defining, clarifying and holding ownership roles and responsibilities. (Koru et al., 2016). HH needs to focus on the policies, processes and procedures view with the process that will be holding the encompassing from the different business units. (Bergstrom et al., 2015). Communication helps in the establishment of the enhanced enterprise-wide. The focus has been on the process and procedures to understand the roles where the incident occurs.  Downs is mainly responsible for all the fraud that has occurred in HH. He has not been able to take a proper interview and check on his background even after keeping him as a permanent employee. Also, Smith ignored Walter acquisition of the nepotism issue in the accounts payable department. Hence, he will be considered to be the major reason of fraud in the company. (McBrider et al., 2015). An extreme ignorance could be noticed when there were certain issues related to the job which was processing under the Oracle system. Also, Tracy should be responsible for her work for processing the data to ensure the timely and the accurate processing. This has also led to the inactivity of the vendors and the problems in the complete data integrity issues.  

Conclusion

Harris has surely been a part of the fraud where there has been six cash disbursement of the authorisation forms which contained the invoice data of the vendor with the amount. Hence, the amount inputted data contain the accounting forms with the payable accounting module. With this, there was a fraud that was involved in the printing and the mailing of the physical checks to the vendors of HH. (Ojha et al., 2016). The person who allowed Harris to access the safe with some pre-signed checks is also to be blamed for the fraud. The Internal Audit Manager should be focusing on the gathering of the information which is needed mainly to identify the risks of the misstatement. The assessing of the risks is taken into account for the evaluation of the programs of the entity and the controls. The auditing committee will be able to process the utilization to identify properly, document and revaluate. With the red flag in the information system, it is possible to focus on taking appropriate actions with the close patterns and control operations. (Montle et al., 2015). The fraud risks could be structures through possibly identifying the schemes and then identifying the gaps which are related to this. There is a need to focus on the risks fraud assessing which will help in finding all the undetected frauds which are likely for the growth from the smaller beginning into something impactful. (McBride et al., 2015). The internal audit also contributes to the helping management with the proper understanding to ensure the preventive and the front line detective control. A code of conduct can be applied for the communication with a properly defined pattern where the training will increase the understanding of the employees along with the obligations. The decision is through the respecting the principles of the separate functions along with allowing the employees to execute the entire cycle of the transactions with properly examining the staff based on the qualifications.

The identification and the authentication control of the mechanisms with the proper setup of the system will help in defining the procedures. The control mechanism will support the individual accountability and the auditing trials. (Menon, 2015). The description is based on verifying the system provided default administrative passwords. The Logical Access Controls are based on authorizing and then restricting the user activities will depend on describing the hardware and the software features. This will help in describing the control to detect all the unauthorized attempt of the transactions with the completely focus on the user activities. For the auditing, there is a need for the public access controls for the accessing of the system. This will help in controlling the problems and fraud done by Harris by changing the invoice data. (Chen, 2016). The system level or application level administrator includes the auditing trails with the applications software problem. The analysis of the tools is based on the auditing reduction with attack signature and variance techniques. With the change in technology, there is a need to focus on the client business environment and whether the vendors are happy with their job. Also, there is a need to focus on the information technology that has been implemented with the proper software system. The services to the hospital need to include the assurance and compliance with the revenue management.

Reference

The health hospital needs to focus on the revenue management with the proper development of the system where there is no chance of the fraud in accounts. In the present time, there is such software which will help in setting the exact data as per the requirement, and it cannot be changed automatically. The accessing of the pre-signed checks should also be replaced by the computerized checks or analysis, which will clearly determine the transactions. The President and the Vice President with the account payable manager need to have a proper communication about the operating procedures when it is specially related to the finance. (Chen, 2016).

Conclusion

HH also needs to focus on the hiring of the temporary and the permanent employees. In the present time, it is always recommendable to hire a person only after a proper checking of the background history he has. Considering the case study, if HH would have analysed Harris background, then it is sure that he would not have been appointed even as a temporary employee.

Reference

Struthers, C.B., Akingbule, A.S. and Obi, C.F., 2015. Illini Community Hospital Community Health Needs Assessment 2015.

Mselle, L.T. and Kohi, T.W., 2015. Perceived health system causes of obstetric fistula from accounts of affected women in rural Tanzania: a qualitative study. African journal of reproductive health, 19(1), pp.124-132.

Bergström, A., Skeen, S., Duc, D.M., Blandon, E.Z., Estabrooks, C., Gustavsson, P., Hoa, D.T.P., Källestål, C., Målqvist, M., Nga, N.T. and Persson, L.Å., 2015. Health system context and implementation of evidence-based practices—development and validation of the Context Assessment for Community Health (COACH) tool for low-and middle-income settings.Implementation Science, 10(1), p.1.

Menon, N.M., 2015. IT-Related Spillovers between Insurers and Healthcare Providers: Implications for Medical Fraud Detection, Hospital Quality, and Subsequent IT Investments. Hospital Quality, and Subsequent IT Investments (November 16, 2015).

Chen, E.T., 2016. Examining the Influence of Information Technology on Modern Health Care. Effective Methods for Modern Healthcare Service Quality and Evaluation, p.110.
Gelinas, U., S. Sutton, and J. Hunton, 2015. Accounting Information Systems, Sixth Edition, South-Western College Publishing, Cincinnati, OH.

McBride, S., Sobel, A. and Caton-Peters, H., 2015. Privacy and Security in a Ubiquitous Health Information Technology World. Nursing Informatics for the Advanced Practice Nurse: Patient Safety, Quality, Outcomes, and Interprofessionalism.

Montle, G., Levy, R. and Rowland, M., 2015. Our Patent System and Health Care Information Technology: Valuable Incentive or Impediment to Innovation?.

Ojha, M. and Mathur, K., 2016, March. Proposed application of big data analytics in healthcare at Maharaja Yeshwantrao Hospital. In 2016 3rd MEC International Conference on Big Data and Smart City (ICBDSC) (pp. 1-7). IEEE.

McBride, S., Sobel, A. and Caton-Peters, H., 2015. Privacy and Security in a Ubiquitous Health Information Technology World. Nursing Informatics for the Advanced Practice Nurse: Patient Safety, Quality, Outcomes, and Interprofessionalism.

Koru, G., Alhuwail, D., Topaz, M., Norcio, A.F. and Mills, M.E., 2016. Investigating the challenges and opportunities in home care to facilitate effective information technology adoption. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, 17(1), pp.53-58.

Mselle, L.T. and Kohi, T.W., 2015. Perceived health system causes of obstetric fistula from accounts of affected women in rural Tanzania: a qualitative study. African journal of reproductive health, 19(1), pp.124-132.