Introduction
Sub-Saharan Africa is a resource-constrained region that suffers a top-heavy share of the world 's burden of disease. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), about 12% of the world 's population live in sub-Saharan Africa, yet the region suffers 27% of the world 's total burden of disease [1]. To make the matter worse, the same region with a high burden of disease still lags in health information technology (HIT) which is vital in ensuring improved patients care [2,3-7]. Timely as well as accurate patient information is essential to meet the health care needs of any patient in any population. Physicians and other care providers require high-quality information to make sound clinical decisions; however, their
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It contains retrospective, concurrent, and prospective information and its primary purpose is to support continuing, efficient and quality integrated health care”[10].
EHR has been identified to be an important integral part of an efficient healthcare information system that guarantees positive health outcomes [3, 5, 7, 11].
Many studies conducted in different health care settings have indicated that EHR will assist health professionals to reduce medical errors, achieve better effective care coordination, improve safety and quality, and also, it can reduce health care costs [2, 4, 6, 7, 12, 13]. Healthcare systems, like all business entities, are information-intensive enterprises [14]. Healthcare workers require adequate data and information management tools to make accurate decisions, both while caring for patients and while managing and running the enterprise, to document and communicate plans and activities, and to meet the requirement of the regulatory and accrediting organization [14]. Currently, the use of an EHR includes clinical care application/functions, clinical research function, and administrative function. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) highlights that a more immediate access to computer-based clinical information, such as laboratory and radiology results, can reduce redundancy and improve quality [15]. Similarly, the availability of complete patient health information at the point of care delivery,
Today’s world in Health care Electronic health records are being utilized in every office. With that utilization of the electronic health records from your staff and physicians and patients, the reduction in mis-diagnoses is continuing to decrease as the years pass. Some would say that EHR is a continual migration path sometimes dictated by internal organizational issues. (Latour, 2009) A CIO would need to research and evaluate every option for her hospital staff. The hospital would do great to join the newly HIR organization to extend its ability to care for patients across the continuum of care (Latour, 2005) The whole purpose of the EHR system is to provide quality care by providing care to patients ensuring accuracy, comprehensiveness, data integrity, data security, and decreased medical errors within the patients chart and clinical side.
Health Information and Data- contain and store medical data of patients, in order to make clinical decisions.
Amatayakul, M. K. (2009, January 01). Electronic Health Records: A practical Guide for Professionals and Organizations. VitalSource Bookshelf(4). Chicago, Illinois, USA: AHIMA Press. Retrieved August 2012, from <http://online.vitalsource.com/books
Electronic health records (EHR) are health records that are generated by health care professionals when a patient is seen at a medical facility such as a hospital, mental health clinic, or pharmacy. The EHR contains the same information as paper based medical records like demographics, medical complaints and prescriptions. There are so many more benefits to the EHR than paper based medical records. Accuracy of diagnosis, quality and convenience of patient care, and patient participation are a few examples of the
EHR was created to have a technical way to securely exchange private and personal medical health information in hopes to improve the quality of care, decrease medical errors, limiting paper use, reduction of health care cost, and increasing a person access to affordable health care. A mandate was created for EHR stating that health records can be accessible to all facilities with patients having the capability to access their own health records at any time. Ameliorating the quality and convenience of care given to a patient, allow for cost saving measures, engage the patient and family to participate in their care, improve accuracy of medical diagnosis, and enhance the efficiency of the overall outcome of the patients’ health.
EHRs can positively influence workplace efficiency and communication and improve productivity with better access to and organization of patient data (McGinn, et al., 2011). EHRs can improve operational efficiency by providing the capability of sharing of information within the practice. Additionally, health information can be shared with external health care organizations provided the proper interoperability infrastructure is in place. Physicians can access patient information anytime and anywhere the system is enabled, enhancing patient safety as well as quality and continuity of care, particularly for physicians on call or working at multiple sites. They also can have access to drug recalls or other alerts provided through the EHR.
Muhammed H. (2015) conducted a study to determine the relationship between EHRs and patient safety. According to the researcher, EHRs are healthcare applications that digitize patient information and clinical workflows. It may be considered as a data repository that stores patient data, and assists providers by providing reference information and recommendations for care. Furthermore it enables providers to electronically place orders and consolidate clinical notes across hospital departments. The results showed that about 70% of hospitals in PA adopted advanced EHRs since 2012 and there has been a 27% decline in patient safety events
In 2004 president George Busch announced the goal to mandate electronic health records for every American by 2014. This would require every paper chart to be converted to electronic chart so that health care providers and the patient themselves can access their information through the internet (Simborg, 2011). The purpose of developing the EHR is to provide appropriate patient information from any location. Also to improve health care quality and the coordination of care among hospital staff. To reduce medical error, cost and advance medical care. Last to ensure patient health information is secure (DeSalvo, 2014) The Department of Health and Human Services appointed the Office of the National Coordinator for Health
There’s no denying that EHR has advanced the quality of healthcare by improving the way information is accessed and exchanged. But despite these advancements, errors, which were simply not tolerated in paper records, are numerous in EHRs. Because of this, electronic documentation tools have been developed in an effort to increase the quality of clinical documentation, enhance communication between healthcare providers, and improve delivery of care.
Therefore, several authors share some of the same ideas as to what some of the barriers faced during the transition to Electronic Health Records (EHRs) and if these barriers still exist once the transition to a full EHR system is complete. Herrick, et al., 2010, states that currently, there is no hard-core evidence to support the argument that Electronic Health Record (EHRs) and Health Information Technology is the best route for health organizations to prevent errors. In fact, the use of such technology could potentially lead to errors if information incorrectly entered in the system and Haupt, 2011, statement that smart software could help to prevent life-threatening errors better when administering medicines. Whereas, Boonstra & Broekhuis, 2010, states from a physician point a view need the understanding of the possible barriers that faced during implementation of EHRs because there a tremendous amount of literature on the obstacles but no suggestion on how to resolve these barriers have not been viewed. Barriers such as, financial on great startup and ongoing cost, technical and time to train staff and how much knowledge do they have with computer skills and psychological when support needed from vendors, etc. It suggests that once those barriers have been ironed out and a plan has set in place, then the transition from paper documentation to Electronic Health Records (EHRs) may go a lot easier for the healthcare arena physician, nurses and administrative
Moving to an EHR can be difficult and the advantages may be unclear and the disadvantages may seem immense. The EHR is an electronic version of a patient’s medical history, maintained by the provider over time, and includes all administrative, clinical data relevant to that persons care under a particular provider, including demographics, diagnosis, progress notes, medications, vital signs, past medical history, immunizations, lab and radiology reports. (CMS.gov, 2011). The principle object here is
Providers will have an explanation and a glimpse into outlook of future performance. As EHR is befitting to every provider’s practice, providers should have an understanding that EHR implementation will objectively promote their practice through considerable, and reasonable designs. In consideration of the status, providers quality of care, systems employed would be scrutinized, and evaluation of desirability to stay in touch with patients or potentially change in system processes. In addition, appraisal of current systems such as quality of documentation, work flow, and staff’s ability to fully utilize the systems would happen. Given the opportunity to swiftly access patient information from a central place, patient history, instant check of drug interactions and allergies and e-prescription would occur. Provider’s determination towards favorable choices and patient safety will continue because, instant communication of patient information, and alerts will occur. Furthermore, promotion of diagnostic and beneficial choices for patients will exist. Ideally, providers should have a grasp of how EHR will promote practice, resources available to manipulate through the entire
Electronic health records (EHRs) have the potential to transform the health care system into and organization that utilizes clinical and other health care information to assists providers in delivering higher quality care to patients (Menachemi & Collum, 2011). An electronic health record is an electronic version of patient’s medical history, which includes clinical data, demographics, progress notes, problems, medication, vital signs, past medical history, immunizations, laboratory data, and radiology reports. Benefits associated with EHR are easily accessible medical records, reduction of medical errors, and fewer test duplications and delays in treatment. Electronic health records also improve accuracy and clarity (Menachemi &Collum,
A major motivation for widespread use of an EHR is both efficiency and financial savings. One obvious savings is the elimination of the paper-based chart, storage costs, and retrieval costs. One study cites “that a chart pull costs $20 at Scott and White Memorial Hospital, Clinic, and Health Systems in Temple, Texas. Their electronic chart solution reduced electronic chart pulls to less than $1 apiece.” Electronic messaging systems built into an EHR enable speedier communication among staff members. Communication to the health-care provider concerning diagnoses, drug refills, pre-authorizations for treatments, and general patient concerns is expedited and simplified. Electronic communication among the office staff regarding referral setup,
In today’s world it seems as if people and society care more about how people dress and how they look ignoring what’s around them. In reality, many countries are facing problems that seem to be out of their reach, and the countries simply cannot control nor fight the problem. One of many large global health issues is HIV/AIDs. Although the virus exists in many places all around the world, it is affecting and impacting poor, undeveloped countries the most, for example Sub-Saharan Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa is facing this epidemic in which many of its people are suffering from the virus HIV/AIDS. There are many methods in which a person can get infected. HIV/AIDS is also affecting the countries, but most