The Pros And Cons Of Electronic Health Records

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).

Abstract With the continued growth of healthcare information systems in the last several years, comes the priority to protect and secure the privacy of the patient information. Healthcare information systems such as Electronic Health Records (EHRs) are becoming increasingly more important in the healthcare industry because of the attempts to improve quality care and to make accessibility to healthcare information more simplified for all involved. Physicians and hospitals are implementing these EHRs because they offer several advantages over paper records. They increase access to health care, improve the quality of care and decrease costs. Unfortunately, healthcare providers have to face the fact that violations of protected healthcare information will increase just as rapidly as the healthcare information systems grows.

There are many positive impacts one of them being patient empowerment. This gives the patient “the ability to track provider payments and could add their own notations” (Gonzales, J) to the electronic health records. Patients get to keep track of the records themselves; this also lets them make sure everything is correct on their records. This is also good because if the doctors accidentally note something incorrectly that can cause major problems when in major emergencies. This empowers the patient to be able to control and correct the doctor on the problem. Negative impact health care providers are “faced with loss of productivity” (Unintentional Consequences of EHR Solutions) our health care providers are rushed to enter information into the computer just to get actual time to see the patient. This is leaving doctors in a position where they have to be constantly on their computer than getting actual time with the patient. This puts us in a situation when the doctor is having to do so much work on a computer it makes us question whether we are getting the care we are paying for from our health care providers. Because the doctors are in a position where they want to be productive they are “directly inputting patient data into EHR (electronic health record) systems in a rushed environment” (Unintentional Consequences of EHR Solutions) causing inaccurate data such as, medicine dosages, drug names,

The literature review examined the impact of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) on the quality of health care provided by hospitals to patients by assessing the outcomes and processes of preventive care and analyzing productivity and efficiency of the hospital staffs in providing health care to patients. While some research studies showed that EHRs improved the quality of care provided by hospitals to the patients, other research studies showed that EHRs didn’t improve the quality of care provided by hospitals to the patients. The studies that argued that EHRs improved the quality of care indicated that promotion of excellent health care can be attained through fostering improvement of communication networks, which must go hand in hand with collaboration of information amongst workers, as well as raising answerability among healthcare employees. The studies argued that EHRs helped to ease the means by which patient information was recorded since they provided an electronic system that complied with the health care guidelines. The studies that argued EHRs did not improve the quality of care, on the other hand, claimed that EHRs brought up the issue of negligence in providing preventive care needs to patients and, thus, EHRs did not necessarily improve outcomes and processes of preventive care. Continued research on the impact of EHRs on the quality of hospital’s health care should contain studies that: 1) evaluate a standard EHRs software that should be used nationwide, 2) find

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the efficacy of information management systems and the impact of these systems on patient outcomes and quality of care. A literature review was conducted from peer-reviewed journal publications from the last eight years (2007-2015). The results were inconclusive to show that electronic health records (EHR) have a definitive impact on patient outcomes. Some studies found a positive impact but the majority did not show a difference, neither positive nor negative, on the influence of patient outcomes or quality of care. As EHR systems continue to develop and the implementation of meaningful use guidelines, as defined by The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) (2010), is in place, the research shows that there will likely be a strong impact on patient outcomes. While the findings of this paper neither support nor refute improvement in patient outcomes, it can be predicted that the continued growth of health information systems will lead to improved patient outcomes through the ability to alert providers and facilitate proper medication prescriptions and administration in addition to other EHR features. The use of EHRs allows for reports to be easily pulled from data relating to patient care, which can guide providers to ensure best practices are being followed. While the implementation of EHRs

Meaningful Use is the incentive program with the intention of helping physicians provide better care to their patients through financial rewards and punishments. Those Eligible professionals (EPs) who choose not to demonstrate meaningful use of electronic health records (EHRs) are about to face a 1% penalty in their Medicare reimbursements. These penalties will increase by 1% each year until 2019 when they finally cap-off at 5%. And just to make it that much more aggravating, EPs won’t get away with a one-time demonstration, they must continue to demonstrate meaningful use each and every year through 2019 to avoid these penalties.

The two health information technologies I have explored are Electronic health records and Telehealth. The objective of electronic health records is to make health care harmless and more efficient by providing health professionals and patients comparable information to inform decision making, to benefit precautionary care and reduce duplication difficulty. Some significant things about EHRs it provides clinical decision advantages, physicians and nurses are allowed to enter data about their patients well-being, and patients able to get a copy of their medical records on demand, also those data can share between facilities and organizations. Secondly, an electronic health record should keep a record of every training a physician gives to a patient

This paper supports my opinions of electronic health records (EHRs) its quality methods, examination, and all its efforts in achieving meaningful use of health information technology in effort to improve the quality of health care. Present schemes of quality measurements usually rely on claims focused on administrative records, which can be unsuitable for use in quality measurements because they are frequently and partially a refection of care practices and patient outcomes. Quality measures ought to provide well timed, plausible, inclusive, clinically valid, and meaningful feedback to doctors, and their clinicians. These measurement characteristics are needed to manage and support meaningful improvements in delivery of health care, patient

Electronic health records (EHRs) are secure and private lifetime records that describe a person’s health history and care (An Overview of Federal and Provincial Audit Reports, 2010). They are made up of information from a variety of sources, including hospitals, clinics, doctors, pharmacies, and laboratories (An Overview of Federal and Provincial Audit Reports, 2010). This information is critical for treatment and is accessible to health care professionals. Electronic Health records is said to be, “optimizing the documentation of patient encounters, improving communication of information to physicians, improving access to patient medical information, reduction of errors, optimizing billing and improving reimbursement for services, forming a data repository for research and quality improvement, and reduction of paper” (Boonstra, 2010). However, when one has not been formally introduced many will be

The benefits of Electronic Medical Records (EMR) significantly outweigh the disadvantages, when it comes to the nursing care of patients in multiple settings. There have been multiple studies proving the enhancement and efficiency of nursing care in various areas, when electronic documentation is properly taught and utilized. Likewise, there is evidence supporting the reliability of the documentation, after comparing nurses’ verbal accounts of previously recorded information. When the programs used in electronic documentation are continually evaluated for completeness, accuracy, and quality, they become excellent tools for legislation. Electronic medical records present many advantages to the nursing care of a vast majority of patients, and also help uphold satisfactory legal and ethical implications of nursing documentation.

Electronic Health Records contain numerous benefits, more so the speed and efficiency obtained through system in which medical staff use and get patient information. The application comes with additional modules which serve specialists such as neurology. EHR improves data consolidation of patient information from the past to the present, diagnosis, treatment and imaging which get placed onto a single point accessible from any location. Continuous database updates of the application permit such updates including Medicaid and Medicare payments. Well trained staff would speed the pace of which clients get served and increase the profitability of the institutions. Advanced technology within EHR enables capturing of data through various mechanisms

Tao (2006) also considers that electronic health records can act as a source big data to professionals and people alike, with the more health information individuals and related organisations can access, the better the provision of health service will be. Gao (2010) found that, in recent years, developed countries, including the US and UK, already possessed established health information systems based around data sharing. For instance, in 2004, the US used office to coordinate national health information; in 2010, the ‘e-Health Trust’ organisation developed the first health record bank in Arizona. For the record, globally renowned overseas-based internet-centric companies, such as Microsoft, Google and Facebook, are established as open platforms

The purpose of this literature review is to compare the benefits and risks of electronic health records (EHRs). This literature review has provided different journal articles to compare the risks and the benefits of having electronic health records in a hospital. Some of the articles believe that the use of EHRs in a hospital will be more effective and helpful while others suggest that the use of EHRs in a hospital will not be beneficial due to the complications that may arise with it. The methods used will be comparing different journal articles and comparing them with each other. In conclusion, the use of electronic health records in hospitals will be beneficial for both patients and doctors because it allows the doctors to

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

Electronic health records are used in health care to replace paper charts. They contain valuable patient medical information. EHRs improve quality of care without expensive, time-consuming processes. Although there are many reasons to use electronic health records, there are also some disadvantages to using them. More importantly though, there is a real importance for EHRs this day-in-age.