EHR Mandate

All staff directly or indirectly connected to the EHR will be educated in the safe and professional use of patient information. The first group of staff to be trained on the EHR will be “super users” (SU’s). The super users will be the clinicians provided with extensive training on the software program and its safety features. (Simmons 2013. Pg 53). These clinicians will be the mainstay in the building between the staff and the informatics department. Each department in the facility will have 3 super users, 2 full time employees and 1 part time employee to rotate and fill in the gaps ensuring there is never a day without a super user. These individuals will receive 6 months of training comprised of 3 days/week at 5 hrs/day. After this is completed, all staff will be educated including employees, medical staff, contractors, volunteers and students. These training events will be a time to ask for feedback on health information safety and HIPPA laws. The feedback received during training will be used to monitor risks to the facility. (MN DOH, 2014 pg 4). Also we will be “sending compliance reminder emails routinely” (MN DOH, 2014 pg

An electronic health record (EHR) defines as the permissible patient record created in hospitals that serve as the data source for all health records. It is an electronic version of a paper chart that includes the patient’s medical history, maintained by the provider over time, and may include all of the key administrative clinical data relevant to that persons care. Information that is readily available includes information such as demographics, progress notes, allergies, medications, vital signs, past medical history, immunizations, laboratory data, & radiology reports. The intent of an EHR can be understood as a complete record of patient

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the EHR are tied to each other. The Obama administration has been an advocate for the EHR. Part of the ACA echoes the intended outcomes of the EHR. The ACA is aimed at reducing health care costs and improving the overall quality of health care, which is also a goal of the EHR. The ACA calls for an improvement in the quality and efficiency of healthcare, and with having an EHR a patient’s health information is at hand wherever treatment is sought out, improves the efficiency and quality of care provided. The ACA states that Medicare will reimburse in part based on patient satisfaction. Improvement in the ability to care for patients with the EHR should have a direct correlation with an improved patient satisfaction. This is another way in which the ACA and the EHR are tied to each other ("The Affordable Care Act," 2011).

Meaningful Use is the improvement of the way we deliver healthcare with the use HER. Several areas of patient care can be improved including how engaged the patient’s family can be in the healthcare process, better outcomes in the clinical setting and the empowerment of the patient to see more than they could in a paper chart.

The main goals of the EHR mandate was to correct healthcare coordination amount the healthcare team of hospitals, physicians, and the lab. It is to ensure that private

The adoption of EHR has been slower than expected (Gans 1323). With numerous systems available, it is particularly difficult for a smaller practice to identify which system best meets its needs. Other notable challenges for some practices include assumption of the capital investment as well as managerial responsibilities associated with the IT infrastructure. A common implementation challenge encountered is the lack of a universal vision and definition of EHR. Since there are multiple interpretations of the definition of EHR and attendant requirements, identifying current and future needs is a complex process for potential users. Short term limited ability systems will eventually become obsolete as there is a move toward more global EHR systems. On June 18,

Anita Ground also stresses on the huge importance of this planning stage by using a concept of system life cycle. It consists of feasibility study, analysis, design, programming, implementation, and lastly maintenance (Ground, 2011, VA TMS training material). The analysis phase in particular would coincide with what the author Yoshihashi is presenting in figuring out office strategy and researching EHR options. Identification of stakeholders and system requirement would play a critical role in EHR adoption (Ground, 2011). Stakeholders would include patients, family, clinicians, billing, registration, and coding as well as the external users such as Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Bottom line is that the new system being purchased would need to provide meaningful use to the clinic based on the current certification standards.

In addition to the core elements, providers will have to choose any five of the ten additional tasks to implement in 2011-2012. Some examples of these might be clinical lab results, patient appointment reminders and drug-formulary checks. This gives the providers a chance to choose their own path toward full EHR implementation and meaningful use. Legislation ties payments to the achievement of advances in health care processes and outcomes. The regulations are specific as to when providers will have to use particular functions in order to be considered meaningful users. The meaningful use rule acknowledges the urgency of adopting the electronic health record and recognizes the challenges it will pose on all providers.

The final step in the process of implementing a nationwide EHR system is Stage 3, which is set to be in full development by 2018. On February 14, 2014 the ONC meaningful use workgroup submitted recommendations for the implementation of Stage 3 meaningful use incentive program to the Health IT policy Committee, however their findings have not been published to date. This will result in the Policy Committee approving recommendations in mid 2015 the Health and Human Services Department to develop the final rules. There are several proposals in place but the leading one that has emerged would have hospitals and providers use a six priority decision matrix that would include preventative care, disease management,

In 2009 president Obama signed the Affordable Care Act, which is also known as ObamaCare, into law. ObamaCare is a national health care plan, which its main goal is to reform the American health care system so that every citizen would be insured by the year 2014. Healthcare providers are overwhelmed by the amount of patients they visit everyday due to the shortage of doctors we are having. One article from New York Times estimated that by the year 2025, America would be in shortage of 100,000 primary care physicians, based on the amount of doctors graduating and an increase demand of healthcare. Having said this, the atmospheric state in the

The goal in healthcare today is to achieve better patient outcomes. Technology is changing daily that affects how patient care is provided. As the world around us continues to move into a more advanced technology based healthcare system incentives are offered to qualifying healthcare entities, provided they are utilizing approved health information technology (IT) to comply with standards set by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) (Jones, Rudin, Perry, & Shekelle, 2014). Standards such as meaningful use help ensure with the use of electronic health records (EHR) that patients are receiving quality care (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], n.d.). This paper will define and discuss the importance and implications of meaningful use relating to healthcare. Several key points will be discussed including an overview of meaningful use, analysis, further recommendations and a conclusion.

Physical safeguards is very important because if a physician no longer needs the old system replaces it with a new one. The old system they want to dispose of will have to take proper precautions in destroying all of the patient's information. It would be devastating if the patients' information ever got into the wrong hands.

Although the EHR is still in a transitional state, this major shift that electronic medical records are taking is bringing many concerns to the table. Two concerns at the top of the list are privacy and standardization issues. In 1996, U.S. Congress enacted a non-for-profit organization called Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). This law establishes national standards for privacy and security of health information. HIPAA deals with information standards, data integrity, confidentiality, accessing and handling your medical information. They also were designed to guarantee transferred information be protected from one facility to the next (Meridan, 2007). But even with the HIPAA privacy rules, they too have their shortcomings. HIPAA can’t fully safeguard the limitations of who’s accessible to your information. A short stay at your local

2) Long-term care (LTC) facility - almost all LTC facilities use electronic systems to complete the Minimum Data Set (MDS) as well as have the ability to electronically transmit MDS data to federally required repositories (AHIMA, 2011). Thus, the driving forces compelling to LTC facilities to adopt EHRs includes changing consumers expectations, quality of patients’ care and safety and administrative efficiency and effectiveness (AHIMA, 2011).

Though there are many barriers influencing the adoption of EHR in present developing Healthcare systems, legal barriers tend to have the third most impact after the Human and Financial barriers. A separate list of risks and barriers were provided to the respondents (physicians and nursing staff) and they were asked to rank them based on importance, with the highest number assigned to the item of greatest degree of risk or barrier (Minal Thakkar, 2006). The mean impact of the barriers affecting the EHR implementation can be seen in the below mentioned table.