The Benefits Of Electronic Medical Records

In the medical field there have been a lot of technological advances and making health records electronic is one of them. The days of having a paper health record are almost obsolete. An electronic health record keeps a patient’s medical information and history on a computer which is accessible to more people in less time. I will explain how the continuity, communication, coordination and accountability of the electronic health record can help the medical office. I will explain what can be included in the electronic health record. As an advocate of the electronic health record I will also explain some disadvantages to the electronic system.

Kreps and Neuhauser (2010) reviewed significant communication concerns included in the model of efficient and humane eHealth applications to assist in directing strategic implementation and development of health information technologies. The article described the communication transformation developing in the creation of a wide-range of new eHealth applications, which included the electronic health record (Kreps & Neuhauser, 2010). The adoption, implementation, and development of a wide range of new eHealth applications have the potential to improve the quality of care patients receive, increase provider and patient access to pertinent health information, decrease healthcare mistakes, encourage acceptance of a healthy lifestyle and increase collaboration among healthcare providers (Kreps & Neuhauser, 2010). The conclusions from this article emphasized the importance of creating applications that are interoperable, easy to use, appealing, accessible, and communicate the correct information needed to yield the best possible patient care (Kreps & Neuhauser, 2010).

In our society today, we have a broad range of computer technology for our use. This technology in the nursing field is called informatics. Informatics is defined as a combination of computer science, information science, and nursing science designed to assist in the management and processing of nursing data, information, and the knowledge to support the practice of nursing and the delivery of nursing care (Thede, 1). Nearly anywhere we go, and whatever career we choose we all need to have basic computer skills. Computers are used in the health care profession due to an increase of productivity they can provide, therefore allowing for better patient care. Computers also allow for hospitals, doctor’s offices, and other healthcare facilities to change over to and begin keeping electronic medical records (EMR). An EMR has the medical information that the doctors and nurses obtain when you have an office visit. The patient’s paper medical record is put into an EMR program is basically made into a digital version of that patient’s medical information. The patient’s healthcare provider can then use these EMRs for diagnoses and treatment. There can be advantages and disadvantages for healthcare providers to transition to an EMR system, and those providers will have to decide which one will outweigh the other.

In the journal article, The Impact of an Integrated Electronic Health Record Adoption on Nursing Care Quality, they discuss how technology can improve quality of care. With electronic health records, nurses can document while at the bedside. Their study confirms that the use of electronic health records can improve patient quality of care (Walker-Czyz, 2016.)

Initially, the topic the Electronic Health Record can simply be typed into a search engine such as Google.com. This step can help to establish keywords. The drawback with using a search engine is the resulting 200,000 search results, many of these results are loosely connect to the topic the Electronic Health Record and nursing. The initial use of a search engine can provide a general idea of the availability of resources and references. The search engine does not allow the researcher the ability to add limiters or refine results. After establishing a list of keywords including, Charting Technology, Nursing informatics, Patient data collection, Digital Health Records, Electronic Heath Documentation in EBSCOHost. Utilizing CINAHL, the nurse researcher should conduct a “simple search” in EBSCOHost. The simple search of the keywords, Electronic Health Record provided 3,949 full-text results of these results, many of the articles that only had a small relation to nursing and nursing informatics. Further, the inclusion of the keywords Electronic Health Record AND Nursing, with the limiters set for full text only, using the “advanced search” provided 34 full text articles. The advanced search provided articles, which directly applied to electronic health records, specifically dealing with nursing informatics. The ability to search the overall topic and

The Inner City Clinic is experiencing problems with medication prescribing errors and seeks a resolution to this problem through use of electronic medical records and registration medication reconciliation. The Institute of Medicine reports in the work entitled "Preventing Medication Errors" that the "average hospitalized patient is subject to at least one medication per day. This is reported to confirm previous research findings that medication errors represent the "most common patient safety error." (Barnsteiner, nd, p.1) Medication reconciliation is described as follows:

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.

To assess the quality of health care it is providing Quality healthcare depends on the availability of condition data. Poor documentation, imprecise statistics, and insufficient communication can result in errors and adverse incidents. Inaccurate data intimidate patient well-being and can lead to expand costs, inefficiencies, and poor presentation. Further, mistaken or incomplete data also discourage health information exchange and obstruct clinical research, production development, and quality initiatives. The impact of poor data on care is only increased by the implementation. A consequential electronic health record ameliorates the capability for healthcare providers to enact evidence-based comprehension management and decision making for

In the modern world technology is everywhere and it affects everyone’s daily life. People are constantly attached to cell phones, laptops, and other electronics, which all have affected how people live their lives. Technology is also a large part of the healthcare system today. There are many electronics and technologies that are used in health care, such as electronic health record, medication bar code scanning, electronic documentation, telenursing, and there are many more forms of technology that impact nursing. One technology that stands out is the electronic health record. The electronic health record, also referred to as EHR, is an electronic version of a patient’s chart, and it contains is a list of the patient’s current medications, allergies, laboratory results, diagnoses, immunization dates, images, treatments, and medical history (“Learn EHR Basics,” 2014). The purpose of the electronic health record is to have a patient’s health care record available to health care providers nationwide, but the patient can decide who has access to their record (Edwards, Chiweda, Oyinka, McKay, & Wiles, 2011). The electronic health record is a very important technology in health care and it impacts nurses, nursing care, and has a significant impact on patient outcomes.

The handwritten documentation has been the usual way of recording medical data since the nineteenth century. However, the fast development of computer technology has led to the advancement and use of electronic medical records (EMRs) throughout the past several decades (Jerant & Hill, 2000). The evolution from a paper to an electronic setting can be somewhat straightforward. The two leading reasons why most facilities chooses to convert to EMRs is patient care and safety. Health-care Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) presented its EMR adoption model in 2005 and now tracks the implementation growth of more than 5000 U.S hospitals (Traynor, 2011).

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

The success of the implementation of the electronic health record was based on employee attitude, listening to concerns and feedback, including bedside nurses in the workflow analysis and vendor selection, collaborations with other organizations utilizing the same electronic health record, staffing well during the initial implementation, and adequate training of staff (Maust, 2012). The challenges encountered were due to some negative employee attitude, not enough education for nursing staff, policies and procedures that do not reflect the new electronic health record, and lack of education for patients (Maust, 2012). The conclusion of this article emphasized the importance of investing in training nursing staff and the role of nurse educators in providing adequate information prior to implementing a new electronic health record (Maust,

The authors conclude that in order to collect data for meaningful use, one must get back to nursing basics to satisfy regulatory requirements. Under direction of a nurse informaticist, utilizing electronic health records helps facilitate this.

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).

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