Electronic Health Record System (EHR)

The purpose of this discussion board is to describe the Electronic Health Record (EHR), the six steps of an EHR and how my facility implements them, describe “meaningful use” and how my facility status is in obtaining it, and to further discuss the EHR’s and patient confidentiality.

In healthcare settings, it often comes up when documentation and information on use of electronic health records are not communicated effectively. The organization and its investors decided to transfer over to a new electronic health record (EHR) system —connecting care across the New England area and the healthcare continuum through three services. This new EHR system would drive results with industry-leading services, from practice management and EHR to population health services. These three services were crucial to industry success and were designed with the following formula: Network+Knowledge+Work=Results. When presenting the new EHR system to physicians, the project team requested the clinical providers ask themselves a few questions as they assessed the transition. A few of the questions that physicians asked themselves include:

With HITECH, the Obama administration has given $34 billion dollars to fund the implementation of EHRs through an incentive based program. To qualify for this program, organizations must buy a government certified HER system and demonstrate “meaningful use” of the certified EHR technology. HITECH has created an essential foundation for restructuring health care delivery and for achieving the key goals of improving health care quality; reducing costs; and increasing access through better methods of storing, analyzing, and sharing health information. The HITECH Act supports the 5 pillars of health outcomes policy priorities as described under “meaningful use”. The act is also measured by a set of objectives: breadth of use (spread of HER use among medical staff); extent of use; and quality improvement (Meaningful use of EHRs, 2013). Originally the achievement of these objectives through meaningful use were set to be met by this year (2015), but an extension has been made until

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.

As computers, digital devices, and electronic health record (EHR) have become a significant part in delivering health care, health informatics ethics has emerged as a new set of standards in addition to existing codes of medical ethics (Hoyt and Yoshihasi, 2014, p. 219). It is comprised of medicine, ethics, and informatics in health care. As the International Medical Informatics Association’s (IMIA) Code of Ethics states, one of the general principles of information ethics pertains to information privacy and security (Hoyt and Yoshihasi, 2014, p. 220).

Welcome to the world of change, no matter how well we deal with change, it 's continuous and shows no signs of abating any time soon. In order to remain competitive in this environment, healthcare organizations need to improve patient safety, revenue capture, operational efficiency, and clinical outcomes. Electronic Health Record (EHR) was the first step to transformed health care.

Technology has come a long way when it comes to pretty much any aspect of life. It is more convenient to just buy things online instead of waiting in line at a store and have it shipped right to your front door step. With new technological advances comes new ways to commit crimes, such as identity fraud. Just by getting some information about a person they can ruin that person’s identity bring them thousands of dollars in debt. So we know that technology is a good thing but a little more risky when it comes to personal information. That’s what brings me to electronic health records. Going from the standard paper record to the more detailed electronic health record is a step in the right direction, but with that step there are risks that need to be considered. Electronic health records means all your personal information is stored in a data base electronically. What is stopping criminals from breaking into that data base and stealing all your information? That is what we will look at in this paper, the pros and the cons of electronic health records.

The use of electronic health records (EHR) aims at improving the quality and safety of patient care. An electronic health record (EHR) is an electronic version of the patient’s entire medical history including past diagnoses, treatments, and current medications being taken. There has been a rise in the conversion to EHR from paper records because these electronic records can track patient data over time and monitor parameters such as trends in vital signs over time or vaccination history, all which contribute to the improvement in the quality of patient care being delivered (Department of Health and Human Services, 2014). EHR’s are used currently to make more efficient, comprehensive decisions about patients, because there is more information available at the fingertips of the providers. By adopting EHR’s, it can provide health care providers accurate, more comprehensive information about the patient’s health to enhance the ability to provide quick and efficient care, to better coordinate patient care, and to provide a way to share this comprehensive set of information with both the patient and their families (Department of Health and Human Services, 2014). The purpose of this paper is to explore EHR’s in entirety including the EHR mandate, who started it, when it was started, and what the objectives and goals of the mandate are. The connection between EHR’s and The Affordable Care Act will also be explored. Each facility has their own implementation of the use of EHR’s;

The Electronic Health Record (EHR) is a vital tool in accessing the important details of the patient, the basic identification such as full name and birthday, the baseline vital signs and the past medical history as well as the current medical or surgical information. The integration of the EHR according to “the Agency for healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) study highlighted the overall economic value” as well of having an EHR (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2015, p. 255). The American Nurses Association (ANA) emphasized its goal of nursing informatics, which is to “improve the health of populations, communities, families, and individuals by optimizing information management and communication” in delivering excellent patient care utilizing the

Learning the difference between Electronic Medical Record (EMR) and Electronic Health Record (EHR) is critical when addressing the potential concerns of interoperability; without a clear understanding of the two, this subject would be foreign.

The concept of electronic health records (EHR) was introduced in 2004 (Sheridan, 2012), and in the 13 years that have since followed hospitals across the United States have adopted computer charting systems. As of 2015, 96% of hospitals in this country are using electronic health records systems (Conn, 2016). It is important for facilities to maintain safe and secure computerized charting to better care for patients and to protect and exchange medical information.

Living in a world full of technology, more and more of us are overall connected to computerizing, and we expect it to do everything for us. Many years before we didn 't have technology, and mostly everyone was into making it. Now if we look at our world, everything is mostly done online. More Canadians do shopping online, students receive more knowledge about the subject their learning online, booking hotels, flights, and even do schooling online. Though looking after all this, most patients in Canada are still handed with paper based records. When we go to the doctor, most of us still receive handwritten prescriptions and our records are unrecognized.

Writing may seem like a trivial task for someone in the communications industry. Transferring all the intricate thoughts that the human mind can generate in a short amount of time is the goal many strive to achieve. Numerous corrections and countless revisions lead to a finished piece that accurately tells another human what could otherwise get locked deep in the mind. But, how does this apply to a physician? The physician can be a skilled leader and an expert at dealing with individuals, but if that quality and information are not accurately relayed in charts or writing, the health of the patient and their families can get jeopardized. Apart from the rigorous training and daunting certification and licensure examinations, the physicians are required to participate in a monologue with the computer. In other words, the electronic health record (EHR) seems to be demanding significant time and attention from the physician.

The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act of 2009 was signed into law with an explicit purpose of incentivizing providers (e.g., physicians and hospitals) to adopt EHR systems. The HITECH Act of 2009 is part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (“stimulus package”). However, given that a bare EHR system provides only partial benefits to patients and society, the HITECH Act requires that providers adopt EHRs and utilize them in a “meaningful” way, which includes using certain EHR functionalities associated with error reduction and cost containment. How do EHRs improve care? What evidence proves that certain EHR “meaningful use” functionalities will translate into benefits? The purpose of this paper is to answer these questions. Impacts include both benefits and drawbacks, and, as such, I will discuss the advantages that have been identified by researchers. Overall, any reader interested in understanding the current state of the knowledge base with regard to EHR benefits will find this paper

The times of entering and storing health care records in file cabinets is quickly changing due to the electronic age. Electronic Health Records (EHR) are becoming increasingly popular especially since there have been many legislative attempts to encourage the use of health information technology systems. With the potential benefits that come with EHR’s, potential risks are also associated with this technology. The main concern is that of maintaining data security and if current law establishes enough security guidelines. Though security is a major risk of EHR’s many ideas have been proposed in order to help alleviate the potential threats. This topic is beneficial to the profession of nursing because as nurses it is also our responsibility to ensure that these systems are secure in order to maintain the integrity of our patient’s health information.