Health Benefits Of EHR

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.

EHRs can positively influence workplace efficiency and communication and improve productivity with better access to and organization of patient data (McGinn, et al., 2011). EHRs can improve operational efficiency by providing the capability of sharing of information within the practice. Additionally, health information can be shared with external health care organizations provided the proper interoperability infrastructure is in place. Physicians can access patient information anytime and anywhere the system is enabled, enhancing patient safety as well as quality and continuity of care, particularly for physicians on call or working at multiple sites. They also can have access to drug recalls or other alerts provided through the EHR.

A lengthy list of EHR benefits supports the evolution from paper to electronic medical record keeping. One such benefit, the significant reduction of needed storage space. Bulky paper charts require a lot of space and misplaced charts waste time and effort to locate. Since EHR data remains on the computer, medical practices no longer require secure on-site storage, and electronic files eliminate misplacing files. Another benefit to data remaining on the computer rather than a medical chart, electronic records allow immediate access from several locations. EHRs provide emergency room personnel access to allergies and other pertinent information of unconscious patients. The on-call physician accesses patient information from their home computer, rather than driving to the medical

There’s no denying that EHR has advanced the quality of healthcare by improving the way information is accessed and exchanged. But despite these advancements, errors, which were simply not tolerated in paper records, are numerous in EHRs. Because of this, electronic documentation tools have been developed in an effort to increase the quality of clinical documentation, enhance communication between healthcare providers, and improve delivery of care.

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

We live in a digital age where everything from photos to important documents is saved or stored online. This includes the use of electronic medical records. The electronic medical record (EMR) is useful in assisting physicians to have a complete and thorough health history of the patient. The EMR serves as a continuity of care from one hospital to another within the same organization (Hsieh, 2014). Consulting physicians also have quick access to recent diagnostic imaging, progress notes, and lab results. EMRs can help manage patients with chronic disease states, aid in data collection for use in research, and prevent adverse drug events (Hsieh, 2014).

Electronic medical records (EMR) can improve healthcare performance and cost efficiency in healthcare facilities. Improving healthcare performance includes patient safety, quality of care, and health status of the patients. Patient safety with medication errors continue to escalate, costing health care systems billions of dollars each year (Seibert, et al., 2014). An estimated 450,000 adverse drug events-medication errors that result in patient harm-occur annually, approximately 25% of which are preventable (Seibert, et. al, 2014). Overall, having an EMR helps improve healthcare delivery: no illegible handwriting, information can be shared on an instantaneous basis within a healthcare institution or between institutions, and review of previous

According to The Healthcare Information and Management Systems EHR is considered a longitudinal electronic record of patient health information generated by one or more encounters in any care delivery setting( Kohli & Tan, 2016). The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) describes EHR as an electronic version of a patient’s medical history, that is maintained by the provider over time, and may include all of the key administrative clinical data relevant to that person’s care under a particular provider, including demographics, progress notes, problems, medications, vital signs, past medical history, immunizations, laboratory data and radiology reports (CMS.gov). The International

There is improvement in financial, administrative and management information, decrease in the duplication of the records, decrease in the repetitive lab tests, and reduction in the cost associated with hospital stays. A lot of money is saved by electronically storing and managing volumes of information [1]. ITAA believes that an industry-wide investment in IT of $18.1 billion would yield gross savings of greater than $120 billion dollars for the health care industry over a six-year period. [2] Many billing errors, coding inaccuracy have been reduced and as a result of this, there is enhancement in revenue.

Although electronic health record (EHR) systems many healthcare organizations, are turning to the electronic health record (EHR), there are are potential and actual disadvantages of the system. Disadvantages of the EHR includes financial issues, changes in workflow, temporary loss of productivity associated with EHR system, privacy and security concerns, as well as several unplanned consequences (Menachemi & Collum, 2011).

The healthcare organization I work for started the transition toward electronic health information over ten years ago with electronic documentation followed by CPOE currently the organization offers secure patient portal and electronic prescriptions. Although, the majority of our data is electronic throughout the facility. I found gaps in communication still existed. Subsequently, a new Electronic Health Record (EHR) implemented only three weeks ago is considered to be portable allowing the physicians to have secured access from home, office and in hospital settings. Data is processed in real time providing feedback as well as communication bridged between all areas of hospital and disciplines.

“An electronic health record (EHR) is a digital version of a patient’s paper chart. EHRs are real-time, patient-centered records that make information available instantly and securely to authorized users.” (healthit.gov) The EHR mandate was created “to share information with other health care providers and organizations – such as laboratories, specialists, medical imaging facilities, pharmacies, emergency facilities, and school and workplace clinics – so they contain information from all clinicians involved in a patient’s care.” ("Providers & Professionals | HealthIT.gov", n.d., p. 1) The process has proved to be quite challenging for providers. As an

With the era of smartphones and tablets, they are replacing monitoring and recording systems with the ability to have full consultations in the privacy of one’s home with the use of telemedicine. The electronic health record (EHR) was used in approximately 16 percent of U.S. hospitals in 2009 (Jayanthi, 2014). By 2013, that number increased to 80 percent of eligible CMS meaningful use incentive programs (Jayanthi, 2014). While the use of EHRs is standardizing the efficiency of patient information, it also has improved the collection of data for population health. When health care providers have access to patients information, they provide better care. The use of EHRs can improve the ability to diagnose diseases and reduce medical errors while improving patient outcomes (HealthIT.gov, 2015). Based on a national survey of physicians using EHRs stated that having this system eliminated the need for record retrieval, produced clinical benefits to their practice, and allowed them to provide better quality of care in managing chronic conditions. The use of EHRs can reduce errors and improve better patient outcomes compared to paper-based record

There are several measures that can be taken to provide some sort of guarantee that EHRs are secure. While nothing is totally fool proof. Employees need to do whatever possible to ensure that they are doing everything possible to maintain patient confidentiality and security. Going above and beyond is what is going to make it happen. They need to take personal responsibility to maintain it. Also there are things that an office as a whole can do.

Health care has an obligation to protect patient information and make sure that their information is only accessed by those involved in the patient’s care or by those whose job requires them to access that information. The purpose of this paper is to review the intent of the electronic heath record (EHR) along with the mandates related to them and review the steps on how to implement EHR. I will relate meaningful use, which is one of the steps of implementing an electronic health record, and how my own facility is attaining it. I will also discuss HIPAA laws and how patient confidentiality could be threatened by improperly using EHR.