Electronic Health Record Transition Paper

Change itself is never easy and sometimes the road of working out the kinks in a system can be quite frustrating. However, once implemented, the work load is lightened, and the time has come to reap the many benefits of EHR 's. Once implemented EHR 's will make every staff member 's job easier and here are some of the many ways it does just that! First, EHR 's reduce paperwork and eliminate both confusion and errors caused by the infamous “physicians ' handwriting”. This in turn results in less human errors and less duplication of effort. With EHR 'S we are no longer chasing charts, or even worse, loosing them all together. Just think of all the space that is saved by no longer having to store paper charts. With the implementation of EHR 's every healthcare member including all staff, physicians, hospitals, and insurance companies can share in enhanced information which results in much improved patient care, and an improvement in overall management of a practice. Everyone wins! With EHR 's data regarding reports from labs, radiology, tests, and procedures can be shared with all involved resulting in better outcomes in patient care. For the medical biller and coder, EHR 's allow a much quicker ability to electronically file a claim instead of handwriting it out on a paper claim. With EHR 's we have more accurate claims with less rejections resulting in speedy claims. A medical office specialist no longer has to take time

There are certainly diverse reviews from staff and practitioners alike on the advantages and challenges of electronic health records (EHR). The transition from paper to EHR is involved and perplexing. There are many incentives, both from a financial and production perspective, but the route to implementation of an EHR system can be daunting to a hospital or practice group. Both staff and patients can be effected, both positively and negatively. As you stated in your post, physicians will not be obligated to wait for patient charts or outside records and reports. A physician can simply log in and all the information is readily available to him. But many physicians, staff and patients have become cumbersome. The transition to EHR has required

EHRs have also changed healthcare by increasing productivity. Now health care professionals are not having to order scan or test multiple times due to results not being able to be located. One additional way that EHRs have changed the healthcare industry is by increase patient satisfactions. Patients like that their healthcare providers are easily up to date on the facts of their health information. Healthcare IT is now considered as a essential factor of a high-quality healthcare system (Wager, Lee, Glaser, 2013).

There are few concerns regarding the HITECH Act that need to be addressed, such as Data breach of protected health information, EHR risk assessments and patients' electronic access to their health information, this access will allow them to view their records online, this kind of access electronic access might cause exposure to their health record online to a third party. Other concern is about the use of the electronic health records and whether it is capable of improving the quality of care and also some privacy and safety issues.

Getting successful universal EHR is not just technology selection, implementation question it needs to address many other aspects such as physician’s acceptance, policy/laws, incentives, security, and privacy and training issues before we can concentrate or focus on technology selection and implementations. The ecosystem should be ready with all these critical elements addressed only then successful EHR implementation can sustain in US. First and foremost there is a need to have consistency around the state/federal and HIPPA regulations which defines security and privacy issues in US. Due to conflicting requirements in these regulations mass acceptance of any medical system/technology cannot be effectively done. Second biggest issue for universal EHR adoption is the acceptance of EHR by physician’s communities. The benefits of EHR has been identified and acknowledged by medical communities at large however the rate of adoption and use after implementation is sluggish. The biggest common contributor for implementation, design and use of EHR systems is physician. Physicians should be properly trained and emphasis on continual education should also be placed through continuing education credits. Unless small physician office (stand-alone offices) buy-in the adoption of EHR no matter what technology and processes we have in place, EHR won’t be universally accepted and the entire benefit and value associated with EHR can be realized with universal acceptance of EHR. Thus need for

The potential benefits of EHR adoption include: real time patient information, limiting redundant workflow, standardization of care, increased productivity, reduction of errors, and more timely accurate communication

The driving for of HIT is the HiTech Act which will result in EHRs use instead of paper medical records to maintain patients’ health information. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, a component of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, represents the Nation’s first substantial commitment of Federal resources to support the widespread adoption of EHRs. With more complete patient information, providers improve their

The ARRA includes the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, which pursues to improve American Healthcare and patient care through an extraordinary investment in Healthcare IT (HIT). The requirements of the HITECH Act are precisely designed to work jointly to provide the necessary assistance and technical operation to providers, enable grammatical relation and organization within and among states, establish connectivity in case of emergencies, and see to it the workforce is properly trained and equipped to be meaningful users of certified Electronic Health Records (EHRs). These computer software products are designed collaboratively to intensify the footing for every American to profit from an electronic health record (EHR) as part of a modernized, interrelated, and vastly improved grouping of care delivery.

Legislation such as the Health Information Technology for Economics and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act promoted meaningful use of electronic health records (EHR) to provide better patient outcomes (CDC, n.d.). Meaningful use is regulated by CMS and National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) and is based on five goals including: improving quality, safety, efficiency and reducing health disparities, engage patients and families in their health, improve care coordination, improve population and public health,

HSHS-EWD has prided itself on staying up-to-date on the latest technology, including HIT. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of 2009 was designed to decrease healthcare costs, improve health outcomes, coordinate care, and protect personal health information in an electronic format. Part of HITECH was utilizing electronic health records (EHR) that qualify for meaningful use. The objectives of meaningful use were designed with the goal of improving the quality of care, safety, and efficiency of the healthcare system while providing patients access to their health records in a secure electronic format. One important outcome of HITECH is providing facilities and providers with a monetary incentive when

The American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) defined clinical informatics as” the application of informatics and information technology to deliver healthcare services. It includes a wide range of topics from clinical documentation to provider order entry systems and from system design to system implementation and adoption issues.” (2016). The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009 include many measures to modernize the nation’s infrastructure one of which is the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) act. “The HITECH Act supports the concept of electronic health records and proposes the meaningful use of interoperable Electronic Health Records (EHRs) throughout the United States (U.S) healthcare system as a critical national goal” (CDC,

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

In the last decade of USA medical history there have been little to no change in medical errors in regards to improvement of care. Meaningful Use, Electronic Health Records and Health Information Technology are practices and programs that can be possible solutions for this issue. The goals of meaningful use include improving quality, safety, efficiency, and to reduce health disparities, improve care coordination and ensure adequate privacy and security of personal health information (Hoyt,2014). With meaningful use, there are three stages: stage one begins the process of capturing date and sharing the information. Stage two is advancing the data processing and sharing and building off of the first stage. Stage three is the examination of the outcomes. Meaningful Use is defined under the Center of Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) and is essentially an incentive program through the government to create a health system that is run electronically and provides higher quality of care through technology. Since the goal is to create safer and higher quality through HIT by providing an incentive for EP’s to further develop their use of the technology there must be a time line in place in order to know whether the Ep’s hitting the requirements. This year, 2014, is originally a major year for Meaningful Use however, with changes in the time line, the cost of HIT, and the increasing of objectives can lead to major complications in the initial timeline created.

But with the benefits there are also the risk factors. Some disadvantages of the EHR system would include; initial cost of planning and implementing an EHR system, lack of standardization across the healthcare setting, unauthorized access to patient information (security and privacy), inaccurate patient information if not updated properly, technical downtimes, potential negligence for data loss and possible patient access to conditions that they don’t comprehend which may panic them.

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