Why Do Health Care Providers Use Personal Protective Information?

The electronic health record (EHR) is a digital record of a patient’s health history that may be made up of records from many locations and/or sources, such as hospitals, providers, clinics, and public health agencies. The EHR is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and has built-in safeguards to assure patient health information confidentiality and security. (Huston, 2013)

After decades of paper based medical records, a new type of record keeping has surfaced - the Electronic Health Record (EHR). EHR is an electronic or digital format concept of an individual’s past and present medical history. It is the principle storage place for data and information about the health care services provided to an individual patient. It is maintained by a provider over time and capable of being shared across different healthcare settings by network-connected information systems. Such records may include key administrative and clinical data relevant to that persons care under a particular provider. Examples of such records may include: demographics, physician notes, problems or injuries, medications and allergies, vital

Electronic Health Record (EHR) is an electronic version of a patients medical history, that is maintained by the provider over time, and may include all of the key administrative clinical data relevant to that persons care under a particular provider, including demographics, progress notes, problems, medications, vital signs, past medical history, immunizations, laboratory data and radiology reports (Ehlke & Morone, 2013). The incentives from both of this articles will result in the delivery of quality care to many individuals in

Paper-based health records have existed since the time of Hippocrates. The most significant change in paper-based health records occurred in the 20th century with the development of electronic health records (EHRs), due to evolution of technology (Rocha & Rocha, 2014). The development of EHRs began in the mid-1960s. Since that time, EHRs have continued to advance. Many institutions are now placing a greater effort in the utilization of this advancing technology (Atherton, 2011). The main purpose of EHRs is to increase efficiency of care and organize and improve quality of data storage through new resources and applications (Rocha & Rocha, 2014). EHRs play a vital role in the healthcare system, patient care, and

Today, the patient will visit the same doctor and the doctor will enter the data into a tablet or pc. The EHR is a designed very similar to the paper chart, but is programmed to collect and segregate the information in different formats to transmit securely to the necessary partners. Those partners include insurance carriers, public health entities, clearinghouses, laboratories, and pharmacist. This data is collected and stored on secure servers. In most EHR’s today, a doctor who has a private practice, and maybe affiliated with a hospital has the ability to allow the hospital to access a patient’s record, if that patient has agreed to release their information to the hospitals. So if the patient is taken to the local hospital, the hospital can have access to the patient’s records if an authorization is in place. The EHR will not only collect the patient medical information, it will track the medical information. Providers are required to secure the information and track the medical records activity via a built-in audit system that will show the medical records history and the name of all parties that access the patient’s records. Poor EHR system design and improper use can cause EHR-related errors that jeopardize the integrity of the information in the EHR, leading to errors that endanger patient safety or decrease the quality of care. These unintended consequences also may increase fraud and abuse and can have

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.

The risk of protected health information being breached has grown dramatically within the past few years, and to combat the threat, the HIPAA Security Rule was created to provide organizations with administrative, physical, and technical guidelines to safeguard their electronic personal health information. These rules have spawned courses of action that healthcare systems can implement to thwart breaches on patient health information such as:

The National Alliance for Health Information Technology, 2008, defines electronic health records (EHR) as an electronic record of health-related information on an individual that conforms to nationally recognized interoperability stands and that can be created, managed, and consulted by authorized clinicians and stand across more than one health care organization (Wager, Lee, & Glaser, 2013, p. 136). In other words, EHR are patient’s medical history electronically which can include their past health, social health, demographics, medications, diagnosis, progress notes etc. EHR’s were developed to improve patient care .

Healthcare is a complex entity that encompasses a variety of specialties necessary toward meeting the needs of patient seeking clinical services. There are multiple communications necessary to efficiently meet patient needs. For many years detailed documentation, progress notes, specialty consults, and physician orders have been hand written. The legibility of this documentation was often illegible, and difficult to decipher, which resulted in clarification orders and often delays. The electronic medical record was introduced approximately 50 years ago with an ultimate goal of compiling healthcare information for immediate and future reference (Keller, 2016). Since the electronic medical records was initially implemented multiple versions have since been created. Successfully implementing the electronic medical record, requires a great deal of research to ensure that the specifications align with the organization’s short and long term goals.

According Health IT Gov (2013), “An electronic health record (EHR) is a digital version of a patient’s paper chart that make information available instantly and securely to authorized users.” The EHR system that is currently used in my organization contains the medical and treatment histories of the patients. Depending on the individuals role make a difference in what all he or she will have access to on the system. This is a user friendly system that was built to go far beyond the standard clinical data that is typically kept in the patients paper chart. A purpose of the system is to

An electronic health records (EHRs) has the simplest, digital (computerized) versions of patient 's paper charts. But, (EHRs) when fully up and running are so much more than that. EHRs are real-time patient-centered records. They make information available instantly "whenever and wherever it is needed." And they bring together in one place everything about a patient 's health. EHRs can: contain information about a patient 's medical history, diagnoses, medications, immunization dates, allergies, radiology images, lab and test results; offer access to evidence-based tools that providers can use in making decisions about a patient 's care, automate and streamline provider’s workflow, increase organization and accuracy of patient information, support key market changes in payer requirements and consumer expectations. One of the key features of an EHR is that it can

Technology is changing how people communicate, work and establish relationships at the point that does not matter who you are, technology will be use in a certain manner. Healthcare is one of the industries that is being pushed to move forward and change their communication process and make patients information available 24/7. For many years hospitals, doctors, and another medical facilities were acting independently on the matter of administrate their own patient medical records, EMRs. Now they are required to convert those EMRs in electronic health records, EHRs. The difference between EMRs and EHRs are resumed in that EMRs contains the medical and treatment history of the patients in one practice only, and EHRs are designed to share information in more than one practice (Garret, 2011). EHRs are more global and will change the way we communicate in the healthcare industry.

Healthcare organizations (HCOs) are implementing patient portals and beginning to allow the patient access to pieces of their record online through web portals. This is a step toward actually implementing an electronic health record (EHR). According to Garets and Davis (2006), an EHR is actually a subset of an electronic medical record (EMR) and is actually an interactive piece that allows the patient to add and correct data in their personal EHR over time. Data is shared with the regional health information organization (RHIO) or the national health information network (NHIN) via summary documents like the continuity of care record (CCR) or continuity of care document (CCD). In order for the patient to have the ability to share this data

Electronic health records (EHR) are databases that record health related information on an individual that is within nationally recognized standards, that can be created managed and consulted by authorized staff, and clinicians across more than one health care organization (Wagner, Lee &Glaser, 2013). Two EHR databases include Cloud EHR by OmniMD and Nextgen EHR by Nextgen. These two databases have similar and different qualities. Some similar qualities that both databases have are patient care, communication, legal documentation, billing and reimbursement, research and quality management, population health, identification form, problem list,

“An electronic health record (EHR) is a digital version of a patient’s paper chart. EHRs are real-time, patient-centered records that make information available instantly and securely to authorized users.” (healthit.gov) The EHR mandate was created “to share information with other health care providers and organizations – such as laboratories, specialists, medical imaging facilities, pharmacies, emergency facilities, and school and workplace clinics – so they contain information from all clinicians involved in a patient’s care.” ("Providers & Professionals | HealthIT.gov", n.d., p. 1) The process has proved to be quite challenging for providers. As an