Executive Summary There is opportunity to improve the quality of health care in Jones Hospital.

Electronic Health Record (EHR) is an electronic version of a patients medical history, that is maintained by the provider over time, and may include all of the key administrative clinical data relevant to that persons care under a particular provider, including demographics, progress notes, problems, medications, vital signs, past medical history, immunizations, laboratory data and radiology reports (Ehlke & Morone, 2013). The incentives from both of this articles will result in the delivery of quality care to many individuals in

As the national health care system transitions to the electronic health record (EHR), it is important to recall the impetus to this reform. Prior to the implementation of the electronic health record, the national health care system encountered many problems that impeded quality patient care. There was not a standardized formal structure with the process. Consequently, it lacked communication across disciplines and among providers and

Adoption of EHR can derive a great amount of benefits in clinical outcomes such as patient safety and quality of care. Qualtiy of care can be measured with different dimensions such as patient safety, effectiveness, and efficiency. Patient safety is defined as ‘avoiding injuries to patients from the care that is intended to help them’(Menachemi and Collum, 2011, p. 49). Often times, lack of time can contribute to omission of asking patients important questions such as drug allergy information and confirming important patient identifiers such as addresses/phone numbers. Improvement of medication error is a well-noted benefit of EHR as seen in numerous researches. According to a study, researchers found that a CPOE system was contributory in reducing serious medication errors by 55% in the hospital setting (Bates, 1998). Many other studies have reported similar findings in patient safety improvement. When e-prescribing is used, prescriptions can be checked for any drug interactions with

Gawande’s (2015) article “Overkill,” suggests that physicians overprescribe drugs and tests which are ultimately unnecessary for patients. To eradicate such behavior, I would implement an electronic health record (EHR) with the following functions: Computerized provider order entry (CPOE) with a clinical decision support system (CDSS) to assist physicians/clinicians (stakeholders) in their medical practice or at hospitals. These functions will help to alleviate redundant tests and make suggestions about treatment. According to HealthIT.gov (2014), CDSS caters chiefly to drugs, laboratory testing, radiology procedures, and helpful clinical literature (HealthIT.gov, 2014).

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

Therefore, several authors share some of the same ideas as to what some of the barriers faced during the transition to Electronic Health Records (EHRs) and if these barriers still exist once the transition to a full EHR system is complete. Herrick, et al., 2010, states that currently, there is no hard-core evidence to support the argument that Electronic Health Record (EHRs) and Health Information Technology is the best route for health organizations to prevent errors. In fact, the use of such technology could potentially lead to errors if information incorrectly entered in the system and Haupt, 2011, statement that smart software could help to prevent life-threatening errors better when administering medicines. Whereas, Boonstra & Broekhuis, 2010, states from a physician point a view need the understanding of the possible barriers that faced during implementation of EHRs because there a tremendous amount of literature on the obstacles but no suggestion on how to resolve these barriers have not been viewed. Barriers such as, financial on great startup and ongoing cost, technical and time to train staff and how much knowledge do they have with computer skills and psychological when support needed from vendors, etc. It suggests that once those barriers have been ironed out and a plan has set in place, then the transition from paper documentation to Electronic Health Records (EHRs) may go a lot easier for the healthcare arena physician, nurses and administrative

Unfortunately, physician's perceptions are not objective outcome measures (Schenarts and Schenarts, 2012). It’s very dangerous the fact that providers rely on the electronic system to catch our errors. Furthermore, some of the most notable benefits of EHR include providers’ ability to access patients’ medical history almost anywhere, at any time. Nonetheless, the heavy reliance on health information technology is a major concern. It has the potential to cause harm to patients instead of the intended purpose of patient safety. Some examples of this include latent errors that do not manifest until they have already caused harm to the patient, or system failures which can cause a delay in time for healthcare professionals to review records thus, causing a delay in patient care. In addition, patient orders can be lost or miscommunicated. Healthcare providers rely on with confidence that the computer system will seamlessly promote the quality care of patients. According to Fiercehealthcare.com (2017), because of deficiencies in the eclinicalworks software, patients could not rely on the accuracy of their medical records. In addition, one patient was

Technology has had a role in healthcare for some time, but only recently has it matured to a point where it can support operational, business and clinical functions of healthcare organizations. In the past, many hospitals used technology for specialized departments and unique roles, but the concept of a complete electronic health record system did not exist until the early 2000’s. The American Hospital Association (AHA) Information Technology (IT) Supplement to the AHA Annual Survey stated that in 2008 only 9.4% of hospitals had a basic electronic health record (EHR) system (HealthIT EHR, 2014). They defined a basic EHR as having electronic clinical information that includes results and the ability to enter and view clinical notes. Without the ability for healthcare organizations to capture clinical information electronically, an online patient engagement solution cannot

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:

Prescription medication use is widespread, complex, and increasingly risky. Clinicians have access to an armamentarium of more than 10,000 prescription medications, and nearly one-third of adults in the United States take 5 or more medications. Advances in clinical therapeutics have undoubtedly resulted in major improvements in health for patients with many diseases, but these benefits have also been accompanied by increased risks. An adverse drug event (ADE) is defined as harm experienced by a patient as a result of exposure to a medication, and ADEs account for nearly 700,000 emergency department visits and 100,000 hospitalizations each year. ADEs affect nearly 5% of hospitalized patients, making them one of the most common types of inpatient errors; ambulatory patients may experience ADEs at even higher rates. Transitions in care are also a well-documented source of preventable harm

Providers will have an explanation and a glimpse into outlook of future performance. As EHR is befitting to every provider’s practice, providers should have an understanding that EHR implementation will objectively promote their practice through considerable, and reasonable designs. In consideration of the status, providers quality of care, systems employed would be scrutinized, and evaluation of desirability to stay in touch with patients or potentially change in system processes. In addition, appraisal of current systems such as quality of documentation, work flow, and staff’s ability to fully utilize the systems would happen. Given the opportunity to swiftly access patient information from a central place, patient history, instant check of drug interactions and allergies and e-prescription would occur. Provider’s determination towards favorable choices and patient safety will continue because, instant communication of patient information, and alerts will occur. Furthermore, promotion of diagnostic and beneficial choices for patients will exist. Ideally, providers should have a grasp of how EHR will promote practice, resources available to manipulate through the entire

One of the most complex challenges that healthcare facilities face, are the high occurrences of medication errors. Due to increased incidences of medication errors, it has become a major priority for healthcare systems to find preventions that could simply decrease medical errors. With evidence provided from different research healthcare systems are moving more towards using computerized information technology for simple automated notes, too bed-side bar code medication administration, electronic medication reconciliation and physician order entry’s as strategies to decrease medication errors (Agrawal, A. 2009).

Clinical outcomes includes improvement in quality care, decrease in medication errors and other improvements in patient level measures that defines the appropriateness of care. Organization outcome measures financial and operational performance and satisfaction among clinicians and patients who use EHRs. Finally, societal outcomes includes improvement in research and achieving population health. EHR improves clinical outcome by providing quality and safest care to the patients. EHR with CDS tool allow the increased use of evidence based clinical guidelines and effective care. EHR use can improve patient care, a study was conducted to assess the clinical benefits of physician reported EHR. The study resulted that, most physicians using EHR enhanced overall patient care (78%), helped them to access the patients chart remotely (81%) and gave potential medication error alert (65%) and critical lab values (62%)(King, Patel, Jamoom, & Furukawa, 2013). Organizational and societal outcome includes increased revenue, improved regulatory compliance, averted costs, better capability to conduct research, and improved job satisfaction among physicians (Menachemi & Collum,

For the purposes of this integrative review, an acute care setting is defined as an adult general medicine medical surgical unit. The expected outcome of the integrative review will be to discover a strategy, intervention, or protocol that can be implemented within the project leader’s healthcare organization to support a sustained change. Upon dissemination and implementation of the findings, a systematic evaluation can be conducted to determine the positive or negative outcomes of the intervention. Each year in the U.S., serious preventable medication errors occur in 3.8 million inpatient admissions and 3.3 million outpatient visits. The Institute of Medicine, in its report To Err Is Human, estimated 7,000 deaths in the U.S. each year are due to preventable medication errors. Inpatient preventable medication errors cost approximately $16.4 billion annually. Outpatient preventable medication errors cost approximately $4.2 billion annually. Dosing errors make up 37 percent of all preventable medication errors. Drug allergies or harmful drug interactions account for 11 percent of preventable medication errors. Preventable medication reconciliation errors occur in all phases of care: 22 percent during admissions, 66 percent during transitions in care and 12 percent during discharge. Approximately 100 undetected dispensing errors can occur each day as a result of the significant volume of medications

Introduction Medication safety is a significant patient safety issue. It is estimated more than 1.5 million Australians suffer an adverse event from medicines each year (). An adverse drug event is defined as an incident which caused harm or injury to a patient (Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care, 2011). Using 2011e12 Australian hospital admission data, of the 9.3 million separations it is estimated there are 230,000 medication related hospital admissions every year, costing the community approximately $1.2 billion annually (Roughead et al., 2013). Medication errors can occur during the phases of prescribing, dispensing, and administration, with system and human factors increasing the likelihood of an error or omissions