Current Status of the Electronic Health Records in the United States

In a healthcare world that operates on stringent budgets and margins, we begin to see the need for a higher capacity healthcare delivery system. This in turn puts pressure on the healthcare organizations to ensure higher standards of patient care, and compliance with the reform provisions. However, these are the harsh realities of today’s healthcare environment, a setting in which value does not always equal quality. The use of technology can help to amend some of this by providing higher capacity care without compromising quality; this can be done with the use of such technology as electronic health records (EHRs). This paper will aim to address how EHRs influence healthcare today by expanding upon topics such as funding sources, reimbursement methods, economic factors, socioeconomic factors, business influences, and cost containment.

One of the most delicate aspect when adopting EHRS is the implementation phase, yet failure to adopt EHR might come with an extra cost of penalties from the government.

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

After decades of paper based medical records, a new type of record keeping has surfaced - the Electronic Health Record (EHR). EHR is an electronic or digital format concept of an individual’s past and present medical history. It is the principle storage place for data and information about the health care services provided to an individual patient. It is maintained by a provider over time and capable of being shared across different healthcare settings by network-connected information systems. Such records may include key administrative and clinical data relevant to that persons care under a particular provider. Examples of such records may include: demographics, physician notes, problems or injuries, medications and allergies, vital

The Medicaid EHR Incentive Program will provide incentive payments to eligible professionals and eligible hospitals as they adopt, implement, upgrade, or demonstrate meaningful use of certified EHR technology in their first year of participation and demonstrate meaningful use for up to five remaining participation years. The Medicaid EHR Incentive Program is voluntarily offered by individual states and territories and may begin as early as 2011, depending on the state. Eligible professionals can receive up to $63,750 over the six years that they choose to participate in the program. Eligible hospital incentive payments may begin as early as 2011,

“Meaningful use is the set of standards defined by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) incentive programs that governs the use of the EHR and allows eligible providers and hospitals to earn incentive payments by meeting certain criteria” (Policy making…,2013). Eligible providers include doctors of medicine, osteopathy, oral surgery, dentists, podiatrists, optometrists, and

Meaningful Use engages patients and families in their health care, improve care coordination, improve population and public health and maintain privacy and security ("CMS," 2015, para. 1). Healthcare providers must show CMS that they are using their EHRs in ways that can positively affect the care of their patients. To do this, providers must meet all of the requirements established by CMS for this program and be able to demonstrate Meaningful Use of their EHRs to receive incentive reimbursement. The Meaningful Use program is divided into 3 stages which span 2011 (data capture and sharing), 2013 (advanced clinical processes) and 2015 (improved outcomes).

The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act is part of the American Reinvestment & Recovery Act (ARRA) signed into law by President Obama on February 17, 2009. The HITECT Act introduced the concept of ‘meaningful use’ which incentivized the adoption of electronic health records (EHR) for the overall improvement of healthcare. This act authorized payments to qualified provider groups that meet the 'meaning use ' requirements that are paid out over five year. According to data from the National Ambulatory Medical care Survey, 57% of office based physicians’ utilized EHR system as of 2011 and 52% of this physician plan to apply for the meaningful use incentives in same year. This is a 11% increase from the year before.

The requirement is that eligible professionals and hospitals should be able to demonstrate “meaningful use” of certified EHRs in order to qualify for incentive payments under the Medicare EHR Incentive Program (“How to attain,” 2013). Practices who do not adopt EHR may be penalized in the form reduced Medicare reimbursements (Bendix, 2016).

The healthcare industry is in the midst of a major change from paper based medical record keeping to electronic medical record keeping. As part of the American Recovery and Investment Act of 2009, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act was passed (Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, 2014). HITECH is the U.S. Government’s first major contribution to the change from paper to electronic health information technology by setting meaningful use incentive program for Medicare and Medicaid providers that met certain requirements. Healthcare professionals that meet the meaningful use criteria will be awarded financially, and those that don’t meet the 2015 guideline will be penalized. We live in an electronic world of instant access to information and by adopting health information technology we give providers better and easier access to more information which in turn allows them to make a more informed diagnosis and treatment plan for the patient. The electronic health record (EHR) is part of the new information technology. According to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (2014.), EHR’s provide many benefits such as improvement in the quality of patient care; improvement in the coordination of patient care; more accurate diagnosis and better outcomes; a higher level of patient participation in their own care; and cost savings for the practice

An Electronic Health Record is a computerized form of a patient’s medical chart. These records allow information to be readily available to authorized providers during a patient’s encounter with the healthcare system. These systems do not only contain medical histories, current medications and insurance information, they also track patients’ diagnoses, treatment plans, immunization dates, allergies, radiology images and lab tests/results (source). The fundamental aspect of EHRs is that they are able to share a patient’s information quickly across service lines and even between different healthcare organizations. Information is at the fingertips of lab techs, primary care physicians, pharmacies, clinics, etc. The

Remember when everything was paper based and computers never existed, what happen to those days? What happen to having to do things manual? Well technology sure has changed and had made things easier and more cost effective in some ways. In the 1980s and the 1990s, Electronic Health Records (EHR) was just being introduced in such organizations such as Intermountain Health Care-Utah, Partners Healthcare-Boston, and Wishard Memorial Hospital-Indiana were among the few to see the quality and efficiency of EHR. (Byers, 2011)

The HITECH ACT was passed by the Federal Government in 2009. This was for healthcare facilities to change over to EHR and the Center for Medicare & Medicaid services will give money to hospitals and also to Doctors that have and us EHR. Meaningful Use then followed in 2015 and then certified EHR systems we able to get more incentive pay. Shi Leiyu & Singh, Douglas.(2015) Medicare then followed with some financial penalties for facilities that did not use EHR. They could reduce payment by 1% up to 5 years.

In the healthcare segment as well as general public there is a huge confusion regarding understanding electronic health records (EHR) and electronic medical records (EMR), as both are digital record keeping techniques. However, EMR and EHR are both different in a way that one is a transition between paper and electronic records, while the other is an advanced healthcare system. Understanding this difference helps them leverage the techniques effectively for an added advantage.

Electronic health records (EHR’s) have many advantages, but there are plenty of disadvantages. EHR’s were created to manage the many aspects of healthcare information. Medical professionals use them daily and most would feel lost without it. Healthcare organizations were encouraged to adopt EHR’s in 2009 due to the fact that a bill passed known as The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act). “The HITECH Act outlines criteria to achieve “meaningful use” of certified electronic records. These criteria must be met in order for providers to receive financial incentives to promote adoption of EHRs as an integral part of their daily practice”, (Conrad, Hanson, Hasenau & Stocker-Schneider, 2012).