Electronic Health Record : The Electronic Healthcare System

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.

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

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.

Electronic health records is a major component in the United States health care system. It has been proven to improve health care quality by saving time and reducing

In the journal article, The Impact of an Integrated Electronic Health Record Adoption on Nursing Care Quality, they discuss how technology can improve quality of care. With electronic health records, nurses can document while at the bedside. Their study confirms that the use of electronic health records can improve patient quality of care (Walker-Czyz, 2016.)

Health information technology is a familiar entity for most working nurses in the year of 2017. Many nurses, have lived through the transition from paper charting to online charting. This transition has not always been a progression of ease. Change is never easy. The process of paper charting with pen and paper and the use of paper medication administration records have been the routine process for many years. With the new onset of the electronic health record (EHR) many processes have become easier, safer, and more efficient while some tasks have become more complicated, confusing, and more time consuming. The goal of this paper is to describe the electronic health record system, expand on the essence

Core concepts include, what is the Electronic Health Record?, how does the Electronic Health Record relate to nursing informatics?, what is the significance of the use of the Electronic Health Record?, who benefits from the use of the Electronic Health Record?, and how secure are the Electronic Health Records? An initial understanding of the core concepts will provide the foundation for understanding how the Electronic Health Record is transforming the way nurses provide patient care.

First, it can improve standards of care. Data collected by the Electronic Health Records provides the best treatment methods; leading to a healthier population (Ferguson, 2001). It is tangent to the over-all goal of knowing the best way to handle treatment for each individual patient. Second, it will bring increased patient participation and collaboration. Our health spending is in a large part due to our chronic health issues. Chronic diseases brought on by poor lifestyle choices are difficult to handle, but IT provides a better way for organizations to develop new disease management solutions to address the issue. Data retrieved from EHR’s could also be beneficial in figuring out ways to curtail costs associated with chronic illness. The third way is the healthcare industry is continuously changing, and that results in an overpowering amount of information to distill and absorb. Also, the coming wave of electronic clinical data provides us an opportunity to replace old-fashioned, volume-based, fee for service business model with one fixated on the quality of the product. And last, but certainly not least, health IT should be used as a tool to include the patient in his or her own care. We need to become better educated as patients. Also, standing up and questioning services, quality, and price to make this break

Something to question is new electronic health records helping staff take care of patients or is it a burden. Nursing documentation is always necessary because it provides a reflection of what nurses do for their patients. Documentation helps ensures a flow with patient’s treatment team (Linton & Moon). When documentation is not done correctly or efficiently due to the new technologies it can place the patient at increased risk and added cost to the hospital. Many nurses feel too much time is spent on electronic documentation and not the patient. Nurses know that failure to document is hard to defend in court (Morales, 2014). Having standardized documentation in place can dramatically ensure that patients are getting taken care of, and not have to worry about missing or forgotten documentation and potentially finding health trends in the documentations (“The importance”, 2015). New documentation requirements are effecting nurses in a good way to make sure their care that they provide is being reflected on and noticed.

A digital form and version of what has long been the patient’s paper chart is known as an Electronic Health Record (EHR). The EHR also includes treatment, physical examination, and investigations. It is sustained and maintained over time by the medical provider and often includes all the key administrative information.

This paper will identify the use of Electronic Health Records and how nursing plays an important role. Emerging in the early 2000’s, utilizing Electronic Health Records have quickly become a part of normal practice. An EHR could help prevent dangerous medical mistakes, decrease in medical costs, and an overall improvement in medical care. Patients are often taking multiple medications, forget to mention important procedures/diagnoses to providers, and at times fail to follow up with providers. Maintaining an EHR could help tack data, identify patients who are due for preventative screenings and visits, monitor VS, & improve overall quality of care in a practice. Nurse informaticists play an important role in the

Andrea, as you mentioned Electronic health records not only enhances patient care but also patient safety. Healthcare delivery environment is dramatically changing and nursing is in the midst of these changes. Health care providers are expected to provide safe and competent care in a highly technical and digital environment. Today nurses are expected to know about new developments and new technologies. Among these new developments, the use of information system and technologies to improve the quality and safety of patient care is important. Nurses are responsible for direct patient care as well as the coordinator for each patients care. To view a patient’s health history, document an assessment or researching evidence based guidelines for patient

Great synopsis of how the electronic health record (EHR) affects both direct and indirect patient care and health assessments. I have found in my practice EHR’s can be good and bad. In 2014 my organization transitioned to a new EHR and quadruped the amount of technology used by all members of the health care team. The nursing had the most impact, with the introduction of: integrated bedside monitoring (BMDI), smart-pump integration, bar-code medication administration, electronic care-plans, admission assessment and flowsheet documentation.

Electronic medical records had a great impact in the ushering in of the age of Nursing Informatics. (Himss, 2010)EMRS present healthcare professionals with the ability to retrieve and organize data in a quick and efficient approach. With information so readily available, patient safety increases and we know that patient cost goes down. This happens because patient medications, allergies, history, demographic, and treatment information is more collectively available.

Another big plus of the EHRs is that studies have shown that it has helped providers improve accuracy of diagnoses and health outcomes (Couch, 2008). For example, nurses could have reliable access to patients complete health information and have pictures which would help with whatever problem they might encounter. EHR doesn’t just keep patients medications and allergies, it also check for problems whenever a new medication is prescribed and it also alerts the nurse of potential problems (Couch, 2008). EHRs can also tell the nurse if potential safety problems occur, which helps them avoid more serious consequences for patients, which can lead to better outcomes. The EHRs can also help nurses quickly identify and correct operational problems, which compared to the paper-based setting, those kinds of problems would be more difficult to correct. It can also help