Do Electronic Health Record Systems Prevent Prescribing Errors? Essay

The advancement in technology has rapidly transformed the world today, and the increase in the number of web-enabled devices has completely changed peoples ' lives especially the way they communicate. Electronic Health Record system, which is a digital copy of a patient’s medical history is one of the revolutionary ideas that have come with this advancement. Electronic Health Records (EHRs) are instantaneously updating records that are patient-centered designed with the aim of providing real-time information to the authorized users (Cohen, 2010). It contains all the patient’s information that is in the hand of the medical providers including their medical history, treatment dates and types, immunizations conducted to the patient and their dates, radiology images and all the laboratory results from the tests conducted in the past. All this information is held in a digital format and can only be updated by authorized users who are stationed in the medical facilities. Electronic records are designed to make it easy for different health providers and organizations to share patients’ information which streamlines their operations since all the necessary information and history can be accessed from any location at any time.

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

Medication errors are among the most significant cause of patient injury in all types of medical errors (Johnson, Carlson, Tucker, & Willette, n.d). In the nursing profession, medication administration errors occur 34% of the time, second only to physician ordering errors (Gooder, 2011). The introduction of information technology, such as the Bar Code Medication Administration (BCMA), offers new opportunities for reducing medication administration errors. BCMA was developed by the Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center in 1998 to help improve the documentation of medication administration, decrease medication errors and provide

The Inner City Clinic is experiencing problems with medication prescribing errors and seeks a resolution to this problem through use of electronic medical records and registration medication reconciliation. The Institute of Medicine reports in the work entitled "Preventing Medication Errors" that the "average hospitalized patient is subject to at least one medication per day. This is reported to confirm previous research findings that medication errors represent the "most common patient safety error." (Barnsteiner, nd, p.1) Medication reconciliation is described as follows:

This integrative review sought to identify and understand the impact of information technology in on medication errors. The review of 14 papers shows that the implementation of medication management systems, which include CPOE, BCMA and automated dispensing machines has successfully reduced medication errors and adverse medication events significantly, particularly the two most susceptible stages of prescription and administration of drugs (Armada et al., 2014).

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

Bar-coded medication administration (BCMA) systems are also commonly used by nurses to improve medication administration in inpatient settings. As an illustration, a study in 2007 showed that BCMA systems reduced medication administration errors by 54-87% in hospitals in the US. It has been reported that a large number of medication errors happens at care transition points, i.e., during admission, transfer and discharge of patients. Thus, medication reconciliation at all transition points could significantly improve medication safety. In fact, preliminary evidences suggest that application of electronic medication reconciliation systems are quite effective in reducing such errors. Additionally, electronic personal health record (EHR) systems can be used to reduce medication errors. These IT systems allow patients to access, coordinate their health information and make it available to their healthcare providers. IT systems are also used to reduce medication errors of omission. As an example, recent studies have demonstrated that smart electronic discharge systems utilized in some hospitals can alert physicians to prescribe important medications.

The health information technology (HIT) topic selected is medication errors. In his March 17, 2017 article titled, “Poorly Implemented IT systems lead to medication errors” author Evan Sweeny discusses a the findings of Pennsylvania Safety Advisory which found that information technology (IT) systems implemented to prevent medication errors, may in fact contribute their occurrence. This paper will examine how HIT can both prevent and contribute to medication errors. The following elements are included, introduction, the rationale for selection, positive and negative impact of health information technology on medication errors, how informatics skill was relevant in assignment development, and

First, one of the clinical outcomes of implementing EHR is to improve quality of care by reducing medication errors. Research has shown that the use of computerized physician order entry (CPOE) systems led to a reduction of 55% of serious medication errors. In addition, the use of clinical decision support (CDS) tools helped decrease 32% of medication errors related to the prescription of antibiotics outside the recommended dosage range. Therefore, states with lowest meaningful use put their patients at increased risks for medication errors. In fact, hospitals with the highest rates of meaningful use adoption were able to reduce their adverse drug events by 52% whereas the hospitals with the lowest rates of meaningful use implementation

Improved patient safety and quality of care through warning-and-alert systems in the EHR – the feature of e-prescribing tracks and records allergies and previously prescribed drugs. Moreover, it has an alert system that will notify if newly prescribed drug poses allergy threat to the patient. Thus it decreases an amount of medical errors.

In the United States, Nearly 1 of each 131 out- patient mortalities and 1 of 853 inpatient mortality consequence after medication mistakes. Baxter International stated 39% of mistakes start among prescribers, 23% happen while copying or mixing by pharmacists, and 38% transpire while the administration through nurses (Caesar, & Hutchinson, 2006). According to the Institute of Medicine approximations that at about a fourth of every medication-related inquiry remain avoidable, and endorses electronic prescribing (e-prescribing) through a computerized provider order entry(CPOE) system by way of single method to decrease prescription mistakes. The questions developed as For adult inpatients (P), would the use of (I) physician order entry within an Electronic Health Record, (C) as compared to solely paper documentation, (O) result in a medication error rate reduction similar to that found in the literature (T) during the length of stay the hospital?

The authors of this journal discuss how many hospital electronic information exchange capabilities in the United States still need improvements to ensure patients safety. In this article, the research is on electronic health information exchange, interoperability, and medication reconciliation. These electronic systems are responsible for assisting with the issues in prescription discrepancies to improve patient safety. The purpose of the study is to test the reliability between the three-electronic capability of exchanging information of health records. An assessment takes place to examine the relationships between the three capabilities. The authors believe if hospitals are lagging in electronic health records, the consequences may impede on client safety as this may hinder resolving medication

Electronic prescribing has the potential to eliminate most of these types of errors. Warning and alert systems are provided at the point of care. E-prescribing systems can enhance an overall medication management process through clinical decision support systems that can perform checks against the patient's current medications for drug-drug interactions,

The PHR was one of three health information systems that came to the limelight in 2009 (the others are the Electronic Medical Record and the Electronic Health Record), when the Institute of Medicine intensified efforts to improve the quality of the process of collection of patient data. The data collection process was prone to error, and was a principal source of wrong medication with adverse drug effect. With the PHR, and unlike other health information systems, patients could access and crosscheck their records, transfer their records between different healthcare organizations or organize and manage records generated by different health organizations into a single system. Additionally, in this era of rising cost of healthcare provision, decreasing labour