EHR In Health Care

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) states that in order to realize meaningful use of the EHR technology, healthcare providers are obliged to apply the technology in a approach that enriches quality, safety, and efficiency of healthcare delivery; ebbs healthcare inconsistencies; involves patients and families; enriches care coordination; expands population and public health; and guarantees sufficient privacy and security guards for personal health information. (U.S Department of Health and

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the electronic health record mandate. Who started it and when? I will discuss the goals of the mandate. I will discussion will how the Affordable Care Act ties into the mandate of Electronic Health Record. It will describe my own facility’s EHR and what steps are been taken to implement it. I will describe the term “meaningful use,” and it will discuss possible threats to patient confidentiality and the what’s being done by my facility to prevent Health Information and Portability Accountability Act or HIPAA violations.

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.

Organizations will have these incentives and programs in place that will seek to improve the over all health of Americans along with the performance of our health care system. “Meaningful Use” through the use of the electronic medical records system will have five areas that they will be focusing on to do just that. These goals consist of;

In 2009, the Health Technology for Electronic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) of 1996 was expanded. This expansion included mandated guidelines for health care systems in the Unites States to continue implementing of Electronic Health Records (EHR) in health care settings by 2016 and added a provision to improve protection of patient health information through privacy and security Turk (2015) . The implementation of this program has created a debate in the medical community. In addition, many healthcare organizations and institutions have conducted research studies and surveys to evaluate the effects of the EHR on documentation of care and other aspects of the EHR. Challenges surrounding the HER include, the cost of implementing EHR’s, time spent performing documentation, and patient outcomes and safety and security concerns. Let’s further delve into a few of these challenges.

To achieve Stage 1 meaningful use of an EHR, providers must meet 15 core objectives and 5 objectives out of 10 from the menu set objectives. Providers must track the 3 required core Clinical Quality Measures (CQMs) on patients and identify at least 3 additional CQMs from the set of 38 CQMs on patients. Stage 2 requirements consist of continuations of stage 1 requirements, with heightened demands for the number of electronic transactions. Stage 2 impacts nursing, brings greater emphasis on disease management, clinical decision support, transition of care, documentation of care plans and patient access to health information (Guterl, 2012). Stage 3 is likely to follow the same format as its predecessors, with a divide between core (mandatory) and menu

According to the ONC, “meaningful use” means that certified EHRs are used to improve efficiency, safety, and quality; to reduce health disparity; to engage patients and their families; to improve coordination of care; and to maintain privacy and security of health information (“How to attain,” 2013). The vision was that compliance with the meaningful use requirements will ultimately result in, among others, improved clinical health and population health outcomes (“How to attain,” 2013).

The system should be fully integrated including care coordination, sustainability and quality improvement efforts. The selected EHR must provide features and functions to facilitate the achievement of both CMS Meaningful Use (Stages 1-3). The features and function of the EHR should not require any additional hardware, software or program development.

While the EHR system collects and stores PHI without paper records, there have been new initiatives that encourage use of the EHR. One of the major initiatives is from The Centers of Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS). Meaningful Use (MU) is a program based on if the provider is using the EHR in a “meaningful way”. Providers have certain requirements they have to meet by using the EHR such as: electronic prescribing, clinical visit summaries, asking about advanced directives, reconciling medications and allergies, and smoking status, for example. The system then generates a report that automatically calculates the percentage of patients the provider sees whom have been asked the MU standards. Each MU standard has a different percentage requirement, and based on providers meeting those percentages determines if they are eligible for financial

The government has been trying to protect patients’ healthcare information since they first introduced The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPPA). Since that time, technology has paved the way for The Electronic Health Record (EHR). Those that promote the usage of the EHR as the standard of care, strongly believe that the risks of privacy are outweighed by the benefits that it brings. These benefits include, but are not limited to: improved patient care, decreased medical errors, and better collaboration between healthcare providers.

Stage 2 published 2012. This stage typically builds Stage 1 and directs towards the advancement of the clinical processes involved with patient care. Stage 3 rules also begun 2015 and will account for refining patient outcomes. For example, a research study shows that “Stage 3 is set to begin as an optional requirement for physicians and hospitals in 2017 and required in 2018 [1].” The new optional requirements give EHR vendors significant challenges to deliver successful certification standards in the program. The ability of electronic prescribing medication, exchange and transfer patient’s health information electronically between one another, and report on clinical data. The information technologies and advancements will also enhance

Most hospitals, medical practices across the United States are transitioning to electronic health care record system to improve quality measures and manage the number of patients they can generate, retrieve, and accumulate. However, the ambulatory care providers usually don’t use EHR technology to the full extent of its power because it associates barriers that stand in the way of changing medical practices. In this case, the EHR will also examine some of the advantages and disadvantages while medical practitioners make their decision. In ambulatory care, there are many advantages of using electronic medical records, such as increasing the cyber security level and privacy safety, eliminating medical errors, and improving the quality of care.

When scheduling patient appointments, numerous potentially legal issues can surface beginning with the initial referral request from a primary care provider (PCP) or specialist’s office. Healthcare providers are transitioning from paper medical records to electronic health records (EHRs) and when the initial telephone call is received, schedulers register the patient by creating an EHR in the health information technology (HIT) system of the referring organization. EHRs contain the personal health information necessary to identify the patient and help to reduce medical errors, which is a serious issue in healthcare. EHRs are a convenient, one-stop shop for patient information because providers have one central location to access current

In the United States, the healthcare system is advancing to an electronic health record (EHR). Documentation of health information on paper is becoming a thing of the past, as the move for electronic charting is encouraged. This transition from paper charting has been recognized as a necessary transition to improve communication, access and accuracy of medical records (Hebda & Czar, 2013). Development and implementation of the EHR continues to cultivate within the USA and is moving toward a more widespread adaption of the concept. In order for EHR to progress there is still much to do to make it more functional. Security and privacy remain a large issue that still needs tweaking amongst several other concerns. While myself and other healthcare workers continue to integrate aspects of EHR into care, we are learning new challenges that it brings and benefits as well.

The implementation of electronic health records (EHRs) in the hospital is very complex and requires detail planning. Recognizing organizational and technical aspects of the EHR is crucial matter because those factors affect the outcome of the implementation directly and indirectly. The culture of an organization and its structure, the building block of the organization (infrastructure), money, management, and human skills play a major role in the implementation phase of EHRs in an acute care setting (Boonstra, Versluis, & Vos, 2014). The EHR implementation in the hospitals would be more challenging compared to outpatient settings because confidentiality, safety, security and data entry intricacy concerns.