Understanding the Patient Intake Process

Internet applications in healthcare management have made major breakthroughs in the last decade. From e-mailing communications between doctors and their patients to having medicine prescriptions being renewed online. There has been certainly a number of the Internet of things innovated and thus far, the health care industry benefitting from it the most because of the simplicity and easy-to-use websites for health care services. There are a variety of applications that make daily tasks such as creating and putting patient records together, transferring medical records through secured databases to other facilities. Some factors of internet applications are for the improvement of patient care, decreasing costs, uniformity of future use, patient knowledge, increasing use of internet databases are all used in the healthcare industry. According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information “e-health is said to be very broad and covers topics such as telemedicine, electronic records, recruitment, going paperless, procurement, healthcare score cards, audits, information systems etc.” (Svensson, 2002). These factors of e-health services play such a huge role in today’s healthcare industry, giving customers of health a sense of independence with their medical information in which a patient will not be able to access after office or normal business hours. Technology in the healthcare industry in the long run does bring many benefits and yet still has its downfalls.

In today’s market you must have a Web presence to compete. Hospitals are no longer immune to changes brought about by the intenet and web based transactions. Patton-Fuller must look internally to see what services could be offered through a Web Portal to extend as much information to their patients as possible. Some information that could be delivered to patients electronically are newsletters, viewing of peoples public information that are currently in the hospital, such as patients’ room numbers, as well as the ability to purchase

These systems will also help cut down on medication errors by comparing the patient’s to medications or interventions so that it is given to the correct patient. Also documents the care given so there would be no human error in the case of questioning whether care had been given as long as the caregiver documents in the record. These features of the electronic health record are in place to promote patient safety by reducing errors.

There are many ways to improve patient intake procedures. One of the ways has been recently in the news. It was created with Salesforce.com’s Force.com enterprise application development platform. It is run on staff members AppleIphones. This replaces a manual process. It has cut the admission process from 18 hours to sometimes less than 1 hour. Having this done on the AppleIphone keeps the protection on health information. When putting this procedure on the AppleIphone it saves time for both the staff and patient.

Introduction: Technology is a constantly changing and evolving field. Those changes can be used to make the lives of people easier in every single way. With the creation of computers and the internet we have been applying technological changes in the health care world for years now. Patients can access their records with a few swipes at their keyboard and share records with other providers. In addition, providers can share reports with each other just as easily.

There are inherent risk and benefits of hospitals utilizing electronic medical records. Three problems that could occur involve workflow, registration and drug interactions. The aforementioned are problems that spill over into the other because they are interrelated. This is caused by inconsistency among “disparate systems,” communication between departments and errors involving medication (Gartee, 2011, p. 183).

Connecting consumers to reliable health care information or health care providers can be challenging for any institution. At the current time, there are two popular methods that allow consumers to access health care. One method to obtain reliable health-related information is through an electronic web-based resource. The other option, if a consumer prefers to see a health care provider in person, is through a walk-in clinic. Utilizing these resources allows the consumer to see a health care provider for acute and minor illnesses or obtain detailed information and potential treatment options via the internet. When looking to increase usability and awareness, institutions should understand the values and preferences of

Bar-coded medication administration (BCMA) systems are also commonly used by nurses to improve medication administration in inpatient settings. As an illustration, a study in 2007 showed that BCMA systems reduced medication administration errors by 54-87% in hospitals in the US. It has been reported that a large number of medication errors happens at care transition points, i.e., during admission, transfer and discharge of patients. Thus, medication reconciliation at all transition points could significantly improve medication safety. In fact, preliminary evidences suggest that application of electronic medication reconciliation systems are quite effective in reducing such errors. Additionally, electronic personal health record (EHR) systems can be used to reduce medication errors. These IT systems allow patients to access, coordinate their health information and make it available to their healthcare providers. IT systems are also used to reduce medication errors of omission. As an example, recent studies have demonstrated that smart electronic discharge systems utilized in some hospitals can alert physicians to prescribe important medications.

Working on the concerns of patients once he or she has been entered the health care system; there is vital need for understanding of the patient intake process. When a patient enters a clinic or any other facility the information gathered is very important to collect for the first time. The preregistration and scheduling information, including the insurance information, patient medical history, assignment of benefits, and the acknowledgement of receipt of notices that privacy practices gathered the first time the patient enters the

Georgia Medical Center has ten physicians clinics that can benefit from the patient portal. Now that the organization has transitioned to Cerner powercharts electronic medical records, the organization can now focus on implementing Cerner patient portal and its benefits. “A patient portal is a secure website that gives patients convenient 24 hour access to personal health information from anywhere with an internet connection” (“What is patient portal?” n.d.) The doctor's clinics of GA Medical Center have 500 to 600 patients seen by the providers for various conditions. Patient portal will be a patient friendly tool designed to help the patients manage their own records and be able to communicate with their provider (Goldzweing, 2013).

Electronic health records will be electronically accessible to vendors and clients. To protect confidential information a security code must be used to access information. The Institute of Medicine identified six goals for health care; medical care should do no harm, be valuable, patient-focused, relevant, fruitful, and unbiased. (National Academies, 2013). EHR can help increase patient-focused care; the patient will be able to view their records online and assist in guiding their care. When records are accessible online patients can see them and manage diseases, collaborate care with providers, and improve patient to provider communication (Ricciardi, Mostashari, Murphy, Daniel, & Siminerio, 2013). Patients that are well-informed about their care have better health outcomes compared to uninformed patients. Patients who are involved in their care are less likely to experience adverse effects, to be admitted to the hospital, and have a medication error from lack of collaboration with their provider (Ricciardi et al. 2013). For providers to receive funds under the meaningful use incentive to purchase electronic equipment, they must show medical decisions are patient driven. (Ricciardi et al. 2013).

Electronic Health Records, Computerized Physician Order Entry, Health information Technology, and Health Information Exchange systems were utilized as a part of 30% of an expected 1.1 billion yearly US patient visits. 57% (17% of all the visits) of the Electronic Health Records, Computerized Physician Order Entry, Health information Technology, and Health Information Exchange systems visits had the availability of the clinical decision support. The utilization of Electronic Health Records, Computerized Physician Order Entry, Health information Technology, and Health Information Exchange systems and Clinical Decision Support was more probable in the West and in multi-physician settings than in solo practice (Hunt JS, 2009). In just 1 out of 20 markers was quality more prominent in Electronic Health Records, Computerized Physician Order Entry, Health information Technology, and Health Information Exchange systems visits than in non systems visits (consume fewer calories guiding in high-chance grown-ups, balanced chances proportion, 1.65; 95% certainty interim,

1. The alternative to using the CPOE is a paper system, this is not ideal because a major source of death in hospitals are preventable, and a 69% of these preventable deaths involve to some capacity patient management. Furthermore, by computerizing patient prescriptions, the hospital reduces the likelihood of errors due to confusion over similar sounding drugs, reduces the need for faxes and other handoffs, and standardizes patient records across the Emory system. Furthermore, this system gives nurses, physician assistants, and pharmacists more time to focus on other tasks, such as ensuring proper medicine is distributed, and less time on routine tasks involving the order system, although this does come at the expense of the doctor spending

As computer and technology use in hospitals, clinics and private practice expands, information technology is being used in innumerous ways to improve healthcare services, patient safety, and the relationships between patients and healthcare providers. One of the modern techniques that have been helping in minimizing the confusion in prescribing medication is computerized provider order entry (CPOE). Before, handwritten prescription might create errors related to poor handwriting or transcription of medication orders. To minimize those errors and maximize the patient satisfaction, CPOE was designed to help providers directly place orders electronically which will be transmitted to its designated destination. Traditionally, the process of prescribing

The future trends in health care are limitless. From using applications that perform EKG’s to robot-assisted surgery, the rapid expansion of technology applications in health care is astounding. Advancing technology also pushes the boundaries of health care in its ability to integrate health care information. The integration of health care information is critical to the effective, efficient delivery of quality care in a now fragmented health care system. This paper will assess how the internet or any new forms of electronic communication can be used as an external delivery source of communicating patient-specific information, address the impact of distance delivery on health care, how these communication issues impact health care today and