Cloud-Based EHR Case Study

In regards to technology and how its influences healthcare today we see the use of EHRs, which allows for a high capacity healthcare environment by condensing patient information into an easily accessible form for all healthcare professionals. “EHRs allow us to collect meaningful data to determine the efficacy in which our units are functioning” (Biddle & Milstead 2016, p.12). This technology can help manage the high capacity hospital environment while not compromising quality. This

Possible benefits included positive patient outcomes as a result of improved quality of care, decreased medical errors, increase in financial revenue for organizations, better ability to conduct research, reduced cost of healthcare for patients, and an overall improvement in health for the general population (Menachemi & Collum, 2011). Disadvantages that were found in the review of literature included the initial cost to implement the electronic health record, continuing maintenance costs, and interruption in workflows that adds to the brief loss in productivity that occurs from healthcare providers having to learn a new system (Menachemi & Collum, 2011). There are also concerns about maintaining confidentiality (Menachemi & Collum,

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.

Electronic health records can lessen the disintegration of care by refining care coordination. The use of electronic health records will deliver providers with accurate information. This is especially important for those that see multiple specialists, and enable a smooth transition between care settings and receive treatment in emergency

It's easy to see how patients can benefit from e-Health. Every visit to a healthcare professional, or a hospital or other medical facility, may result in important information about their health being created and stored at that specific location. E-Health will allow this information to be much more easily shared between the health care providers involved in their care.

* Comprehensive patient records- all patient data including history, treatments, results and outcomes are available at a single electronic source.

Integration will lead to superior diagnoses as doctors will have access to medical records from across the country, enabling them to draw on the diagnoses of other doctors facing similar situations. It will also allow for seamless care as records for the same patients will be instantly accessible and fully up to date wherever they go. The application layer will be standardized, with a consumer-facing mobile and web application and a doctor-facing web portal. While the way care is administered differs from hospital to hospital and clinic to clinic, what a practitioner needs from an IT solution will remain relatively constant.

Hence, EHR 's are inherently complex amalgamations of diverse subsystems targeted toward varied users. The stakeholders are the users and must have a role in implementing any IT or EHR system into its work flow. An EHR can be customized to accommodate any environment depending on the level of expertise of the vendor and how long they have been in the business of creating an optimum system that 's customized to fit the organizations needs. For the most part, EHR 's must be designed for efficient, error free use. Ideally, an EHR is a system that encompass all the subsystems that make a hospital meet "meaningful use" criteria to acquire incentives for adopting EHR into practice. In the next five years, EHR adoption will no longer be a luxury, it will be a "MUST". EHR 's and other health information technology will be a necessity to practice medicine (econsultant.com, 2010). Rather than purchase several standalone systems, it would behoove one , in my opinion , to purchase an EHR that would satisfy all the needs of the stakeholders, the physician , nurses and other hospital staff and all parties involved in the tertiary practice too. Although LWMS 's budget is not large enough to accommodate the full cost of implementing an EHR,

Electronic Health Record (EHR) is an electronic version of a patients medical history, that is maintained by the provider over time, and may include all of the key administrative clinical data relevant to that persons care under a particular provider, including demographics, progress notes, problems, medications, vital signs, past medical history, immunizations, laboratory data and radiology reports (Ehlke & Morone, 2013). The incentives from both of this articles will result in the delivery of quality care to many individuals in

The cons of an EHR are part of the driving force behind the model restricted from the need to integrate EHRs throughout the health system and share information with network of referring hospitals. However, this sharing of information is often not possible (EHR,2013). Finding a hospital partner that is willing to open the lines of communication is critical to the success. The cost associated with EHRs is often a deterrent. Not only must the provider pay for the physical hardware and/or software, the organization must also put forth a considerable dollar amount for setup, maintenance, training, IT support and system updates (EHR,2013). With EHRs, much more documentation is required of physicians before, during and after a patient visit. This has its pros and cons. For example, a benefit of more strong documentation is that it provides additional information for the coders that may justify a higher level of service being billed(EHR,2013).

Containing ninety participants, 36% of the respondents were hospital CIOs and I.T. executives, 19% from integrated delivery systems headquarters, 19% from group practices, and 27% from other facilities. Survey results pertained to patient health records, electronic health record (EHR) certification, and other IT issues in healthcare. According to the survey, “81% of respondents said their I.T. budgets will grow, with the most common prediction being growth of 5% to 10%. Implementing electronic health records was the No. 1 software investment priority for the coming year for hospitals, integrated delivery systems and group practices alike.” (CIOs Predict Future Trends, n.d) Interestingly, despite the economy at the time showing signs of a recession, “the vast majority of health care organizations expect their information technology budgets to grow during the next fiscal year, and this growth is driven primarily by a need to improve access to information for clinicians, the survey shows.” (CIOs Predict Future Trends, n.d) This improved access to information can be applied to patients as well, as the push towards cloud storage and record/test results access alleviates the need to wait, call, and require record searches from the physician’s staff. On the subject of streamlining access to the implementation to patient EHRs, 19% of

There are certainly diverse reviews from staff and practitioners alike on the advantages and challenges of electronic health records (EHR). The transition from paper to EHR is involved and perplexing. There are many incentives, both from a financial and production perspective, but the route to implementation of an EHR system can be daunting to a hospital or practice group. Both staff and patients can be effected, both positively and negatively. As you stated in your post, physicians will not be obligated to wait for patient charts or outside records and reports. A physician can simply log in and all the information is readily available to him. But many physicians, staff and patients have become cumbersome. The transition to EHR has required

Although the general population has concerns about who has the ability to access their medical records, data has been put into place showed that the general population knows that having an EHR would be beneficial (Thede, 2010). Research has suggested that patients, providers and insurance companies have benefited from EHRs because insurance companies do not have to pay for duplicate testing as well as patients and providers having the ability to increase the quality of care that is provider (Thede, 2010). Not to mention, the patients aren’t pained to have to remember every detail of the history when visiting various specialist (Thede, 2010). Moreover, EHR can increase medical staff efficiency and reduce errors, and keeping adverse drug events from happening (Bill to promote electronic health records proposed, 2008).

As our world gets radically transformed by digital technology, EHRs leverage the digital potential to transform healthcare delivery. The benefits of EHRs are numerous. Amongst the many benefits, some relevant to this discussion include: reducing costs e.g. by minimizing duplication of tests, improving integrated care and coordination amongst various healthcare professionals, improving patient engagement, and allowing free flow of information for it to be available at any time anywhere within the country. These benefits are unfortunately not fully realized in Canada and some of the factors hindering that are:

It is important to understand that patients are very satisfied with electronic health systems. For example, patients see a vast improvement in the speed at which they are being seen when they go their doctors’ office. Patients no longer have to wait on their physicians for hours due to the fact that their information can be readily available to their physicians when they come to see them. Moreover, all their information is transparent to their health care provider since all their data is in electronic form.