Technology 's Efficiency Footprint On The Healthcare World Essay

The health care sector is impacted by numerous changes and challenges, such as increasing need for health care provision, changing demands from patients or rapidly evolving technologies. In the context of evolving technologies, the developments occur not only in the actual provision of the medical act, but also at the level of the complementary operations, such as health care information management.

Over the past decade, virtually every major industry invested heavily in computerization. The heath care industry was no exception to the rise in the use of technology. These technologies are starting to allow health care practitioners to offer faster, and more efficient patient care than ever before. No doubt this is the right direction we expect health care to follow.

Going back hundreds of years, we can trace the history of health care. Although it has evolved over the years, it all has a common goal; to heal those who are ill. Technology is one of the major evolutions and now plays a big role in the health care system. It helps patients to be more involved with their healthcare. They can make appointments, follow up on test results, and contact their doctors. Back then, they didn’t even have all the medicine we have now, let alone the technology. We can only imagine what is in store for the future.

Technology has come a long way over the years and continues to advance rapidly. The health care system is greatly affected by the advancements in technology. An example of this would be the use of electronic health records (EHR). In this paper I will be describing the electronic health record system. How my facility has initiated the EHR with following the six steps and describe meaningful use and how my facility is working towards this. Lastly I will discuss how to maintain patient confidentiality with use of EHR, and what my facility is doing to prevent HIPPA violations.

Electronic Health Records (EHRs) is another version of a patient’s medical history, that is maintained by the healthcare facilities or provider over time, and may include all of the key administrative clinical data relevant to that persons care under particular healthcare facilities, including demographics, progress notes, medication, x-rays, surgical history, and etc.(CMS,2012). While the adoption of the electronic health record system seems promising for the healthcare community and having a positive impact on the HIM field with better care and decreased in healthcare cost, and other promising aspects. However, poor EHR system design and improper use can cause EHR-related errors put at risk to honesty of the information in the EHR; causing or leading healthcare facilities and hospital to break that confidential bond they have with the patient. This will cause EHRS to have errors that endanger patient safety or decrease the quality of care that the patients expect from the hospital or healthcare facility (Bowman, 2013). In the paper I will discussed the topics along the lines like managing the Transition from Paper to EHRs, EHRs to redefine the role of doctors, and other ways how EHRs impact will have on the HIM community.

Quality, safety, and efficiency are essential attributes that healthcare workers must be able to perform to ensure their patient receives necessary care and treatment. “Implementations of potentially transformative eHealth technologies are currently underway internationally, often with significant impact on national expenditure. England has, for example, invested at least £12.8 billion in a National Programme for Information Technology (NPfIT) for the National Health Service, and the Obama administration in the United States (US) has similarly committed to a US $38 billion eHealth investment in health care. Such large-scale expenditure has been justified on the grounds that electronic health records (EHRs), picture archiving and communication systems (PACS), electronic pre-scribing (ePrescribing) and associated computerised provider (or physician) order entry systems (CPOE), and

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

The use of IT in the healthcare field has been a strategic focus for necessary improvement that stands to enable more cost effective, higher-quality, and far safer patient care according to the Committee on Data Standards for Patient Safety (2003). The National quality forum conceptualized the idea of meaningful use to the nursing fraternity and believed that they were the most critical link in patient care and health delivery and hence technology tools of EHR would be best used by them The purpose of the electronic health records was to improve the health of population, coordination of care, safety improvement in patients undergoing critical and long term care, and patient and family engagement in timely access of

Technology in our age today has been emerging, and as the years advance it is certain that it will continue to facilitate the world that we live in on many different scales. In relation to medical care and advancement, technology can be used in many ways to enhance healthcare delivery and patient care. Through technology communication within the interdisciplinary teams of a patient which sometimes involves various specialties, is highly facilitated. Medical records are now easily shared within the team of specialist. For example, records such as specialty doctor's recommendations and laboratory records arrive faster at the primary care physician fingertip. This helps immensely in the providers decision making process for sometimes very time sensitive, lifesaving treatments preferences. Technology also helps to improve health care delivery and patient care because it has played a major role in decreasing the rates of preventable medical errors that are sometimes costly to patient lives. In an article published by the Internatinal Journal of Health

Advancement in computer technology has dramatically changed the ways we live and interact with each other. Information and communication technology has been widely cited as a means of improving clinical records, quality of care, efficiency and reduces healthcare costs (Meum, Wangensteen, Soleng, & Wynn, 2011). Electronic Health Records allow for the electronic documentation of patients’ health history, present health status, procedures, tests, nursing interventions, medical interventions, point of

Technology has truly played a pivotal role in the advancement of today’s healthcare system. Carl Houston (2013) discusses how technology has made huge advancements in things such as: genetics and genomics, less invasive and more accurate tools for diagnosis and treatment, 3-d printing, robotics, biometrics, and computerized physician/provider order entry and clinical decision maker. With today’s advanced technologies, patients with more complex health issues, which would have killed them in the past, can now be treated. Interventions and cures that we did not even think were possible years ago, are being used. For nurses, electronic health records (HER) allows them to have quick access to the patients medication and health history information

Health care systems survive due to numerous reasons, but one of their most important traits is the willingness to adapt to changes caused by the flux of the industry. Healthcare issues and healthcare delivery rarely become static due to new diseases, changing patient attitudes, medical spending, and technological innovations. The need for personnel and institutions to adjust with these issues cannot be overstated. Recently the importance of technological advances has become a forerunner in revamping medical systems. High costs, shorter hospital stays, and a reduction in hospital staff have demanded new ways information can be passed to those who need it most. Advances in information technology surround us everyday through the use of pagers,

It is important to understand that patients are very satisfied with electronic health systems. For example, patients see a vast improvement in the speed at which they are being seen when they go their doctors’ office. Patients no longer have to wait on their physicians for hours due to the fact that their information can be readily available to their physicians when they come to see them. Moreover, all their information is transparent to their health care provider since all their data is in electronic form.

Robert E Hoyt identifies the importance of patient safety and health information technology in today healthcare industry. Technology today, partakes great potential in reduce medical errors, and preventable adverse events. Hoyt mention that, not all safety risks or events are related to errors and not all errors create safety issues (Hoyt, 2014). Not all errors that happen is preventable, and it is hard to determine if it is preventable or non-preventable safety risked and events. There are many agencies that support the patient safety concerns. The department of health and human services, is the prime leadership in improving the safety of the patients. The health technology has the potential to decrease medical errors, for example, improving and identified physician’s handwriting, less drug errors that has similar drug names, easier to integrate with other IT systems and easier to identify prescribers. Therefore, the concerns and concepts that hospitals and providers ought to focus on to continue to provide patient safety, exist in maintaining physician credential updated, by doing so, this support the quality of care. Whereas, updating credential, subside hospitals from being vigilant for physicians not meeting the credentials for their scope of practice. In addition to, physicians tighten the processes for distributing patient care, is another concern that reflects improvement, for example, physicians writing orders that are unreadable or miss

In today’s medical field technology plays a big role when it comes to patient care. Technology is huge when it comes to giving the patient the best type of quality care when they are in the hospital. In the old days people would just write it down on a sheet of paper and record it by hand, which caused mistakes. Now with the Electronic Health Record those mistakes are drastically declining. Statistics have shown that using the Electronic Health Record has lowered Nursing mistakes as well as improved patient care. Our society has progressed through the years and has been introduced with the Electronic Health Record which has drastically improved our health care system. The Electronic Health Record provides great communication between