IOM Role In Health Care

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) committee created six “Aims for Improvement” that healthcare should embrace in

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.

Although the EHR is still in a transitional state, this major shift that electronic medical records are taking is bringing many concerns to the table. Two concerns at the top of the list are privacy and standardization issues. In 1996, U.S. Congress enacted a non-for-profit organization called Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). This law establishes national standards for privacy and security of health information. HIPAA deals with information standards, data integrity, confidentiality, accessing and handling your medical information. They also were designed to guarantee transferred information be protected from one facility to the next (Meridan, 2007). But even with the HIPAA privacy rules, they too have their shortcomings. HIPAA can’t fully safeguard the limitations of who’s accessible to your information. A short stay at your local

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the electronic health record mandate. Who started it and when? I will discuss the goals of the mandate. I will discussion will how the Affordable Care Act ties into the mandate of Electronic Health Record. It will describe my own facility’s EHR and what steps are been taken to implement it. I will describe the term “meaningful use,” and it will discuss possible threats to patient confidentiality and the what’s being done by my facility to prevent Health Information and Portability Accountability Act or HIPAA violations.

Several years ago, a mandate was ordered requiring all healthcare facilities to progress from paper charting and record keeping to electronic health record (EHR). This transition to electronic formatting has pros and cons associated with it. I will be describing the EHR mandate, including who initiated it, when it was initiated, the goals of the EHR, and how the Affordable Care Act and the Obama administration are tied into it. Then I will show evidence of research and discuss the six steps of this process as well as my facilities progress with EHR. Then I will describe meaningful use and how my facility attained it. Finally, I will define HIPAA law, the possible threats to patient confidentiality relating to EHR, and how what my facility

If governments are charged with ensuring access to health care for all its citizens, then we would not have a class in addressing health disparities. There may be some improvements needed in order to fully hold governments accountable, but it is something that will not change in the near future (Hathaway 2002). Furthermore, Braverman continues to charge the governments responsible for providing a right to health, but in reality most governments are limited in resources to address these issues. Some governments may have very dysfunctional systems in place that are not capable to provide equal health to all its citizens.

Health is an issue that brings together various sectors and stakeholders because of its importance in the society. Giving the population quality healthcare requires vast attention and resources. Investments in the health sectors have kept growing to ensure that the society is protected from exploitation and that the quality of lives of the people is improved. However, there are instances when key stakeholders have failed in their role because of generalizations that

Many health care leaders, authors, and professionals have given their time and effort to write and discuss quality. Quality is now recognized as one of the key aims in healthcare today. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) has had a profound impact on health care in America and the view of quality within health care facilities. The National Roundtable on Health Care Quality met six different times between 1996 and 1998 to look at changes regarding quality in health care. Within their conclusion they said, “Serious and widespread quality problems exist throughout American Medicine” (IOM, 1998). The terms underuse, overuse, and misuse evolved here to describe the errors occurring in health care. These errors were hurting more patients than the population realized and once published the trust towards healthcare was low and many had questions. Their review at the roundtable combed through what was currently the norm in health care. Based on the experience of the members of the roundtable, it was not up to par and a shift was necessary to improve healthcare outcomes.

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

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) is a nonprofit organization that provides guidance to the Nation on issues related to biomedical science, medicine, and health and improving the Nation 's quality of care (.AHRQ, 2011). The organization established in 1970 as a component of the US National Academy of Sciences that works outside the framework of government to provide evidence-based research and recommendations for public health and science policy (IOM, 2016). The institute of medicine is well known for its health care quality initiative launched 1996.The health care quality Initiative is an ongoing process that focused on improving quality of healthcare nationwide. According to AHRQ the initiative is divided into three phases: The first phase (1996-1999) brought to light the Nation 's overall quality problem and outlined the gulf between good quality care and what really exists. The second phase (1999-2001) described a vision of how the health care system and the related policy environment must be transformed to close the gap. The third phase is ongoing and focuses on the efforts required to achieve this vision. (AHRQ, 2011)

Dr. Kemp defines an electronic medical record (EMR) as “the digital version of a paper chart that contains all of a patients ' medical history from one practice” (Kemp, 2014). He also differentiates between the use of the term electronic medical record (EMR) and electronic health record (EHR). An EHR is more “comprehensive” than an EMR. It allows for data sharing across multiple practices. The use of both EMRs and EHRs has gained in notoriety in the last decade. And it appears that the use of these two terms is interchangeable. The idea of data sharing and having one’s health records at the click of a button is highly appealing. While there are several ethical implications to explore when dealing with computerized charting, the objective for this research review will focus primarily on three interesting concepts: autonomy, finance, and privacy, as it relates to information technology.

In any country, external forces can influence or shape the basic character of a healthcare delivery system (Shi, 2015). These forces consist of political climate of a nation, economic development, technological processes, social and cultural values, physical environment, population characteristics such as demographic and health trends, global

The future and direction of health care has been the topic of discussion amongst politician and U.S citizens today. There are several challenges surrounding the future and strategic direction in which health care should be heading. Accreditation, quality of health care and organization’s compliance; access to health care, maintaining a skilled workforce, information technology and pay for performance are some of the challenges that currently presenting itself in healthcare today. If health care is not dealt with appropriately it will have a significant effect an impact on the strategic direction in the future and direction of care.

“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

Electronic health records (EHR’s) have many advantages, but there are plenty of disadvantages. EHR’s were created to manage the many aspects of healthcare information. Medical professionals use them daily and most would feel lost without it. Healthcare organizations were encouraged to adopt EHR’s in 2009 due to the fact that a bill passed known as The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act). “The HITECH Act outlines criteria to achieve “meaningful use” of certified electronic records. These criteria must be met in order for providers to receive financial incentives to promote adoption of EHRs as an integral part of their daily practice”, (Conrad, Hanson, Hasenau & Stocker-Schneider, 2012).