The Personal Health Record ( Phr )

The health record is a collection of information about a patient’s past and present health. The primary purpose of the health record is to document the health history of the patient. It helps in patient care management and patient care support process. Moreover, record’s primary purpose is to get information for billing and reimbursement. The secondary purpose of the health record is to provide a legal record of care given and act as a source of data to support clinical audit, research, resource allocation, performance monitoring, epidemiology and service planning. Sometimes health information will be de-identified before it is used for these secondary

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) states that in order to realize meaningful use of the EHR technology, healthcare providers are obliged to apply the technology in a approach that enriches quality, safety, and efficiency of healthcare delivery; ebbs healthcare inconsistencies; involves patients and families; enriches care coordination; expands population and public health; and guarantees sufficient privacy and security guards for personal health information. (U.S Department of Health and

Even though I am an advocate for the electronic health record there are drawbacks to the system. Each individual physician will have to determine if the drawbacks are worth the advantages of the system. One of the drawbacks to the system is privacy. Privacy will always be a big factor. Some patients may not like the idea of having their medical information easily accessible by almost anybody. (The HWN Team, 2009) Electronic health records

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.

Personal Health Record (PHR) is like the EHR, as a record of storing your information about your health. PHRs allow you to access your information by using a password or ID. Physicians spend a lot of time on EHRs because they must document patient information. On the other hand, PHRs are used by patients to navigate through their own information whenever they wish. These tools may be very useful for patient care, but physicians should also incorporate one-on-one care to improve patient satisfaction.

But with the benefits there are also the risk factors. Some disadvantages of the EHR system would include; initial cost of planning and implementing an EHR system, lack of standardization across the healthcare setting, unauthorized access to patient information (security and privacy), inaccurate patient information if not updated properly, technical downtimes, potential negligence for data loss and possible patient access to conditions that they don’t comprehend which may panic them.

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.

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.

In 2009, the Health Technology for Electronic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) of 1996 was expanded. This expansion included mandated guidelines for health care systems in the Unites States to continue implementing of Electronic Health Records (EHR) in health care settings by 2016 and added a provision to improve protection of patient health information through privacy and security Turk (2015) . The implementation of this program has created a debate in the medical community. In addition, many healthcare organizations and institutions have conducted research studies and surveys to evaluate the effects of the EHR on documentation of care and other aspects of the EHR. Challenges surrounding the HER include, the cost of implementing EHR’s, time spent performing documentation, and patient outcomes and safety and security concerns. Let’s further delve into a few of these challenges.

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

This can lead to more successful patient health outcomes. "The promise of fully realized EHRs is having a single record that includes all of a patient's health information: a record that is up to date, complete, and accurate" (Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information, n.d.)

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

Personal health records (PHRs). PHRs allow patients to monitor and track of information from provider visits. PHR can also follow the trajectory of food intake,

For this reason, some experts think that the term “Personal Health Record” is not descriptive enough and can limit innovation and usage of these systems. Personal Health Record Systems (PHRS) and Personal Health Platforms (PHP) have been suggested as more appropriate terms.

The correlation of increased potential patient rights violations and sensitive personal health data among electronic medical records than paper records is growing at an alarming rate. An estimated 52,000 public comments was reviewed by the Department of Health and Human Services requiring privacy regulations governing individually identifiable health information since the passage of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1966 (HIPPA). The individually identifiable health information includes demographic data that relates to the individuals past, present, or future physical or mental health condition. In addition, the provision of health care rights of the individual, confidentiality, protection of