Why Is It Important To Use Electronic Medical Records?

Electronic health records can lessen the disintegration of care by refining care coordination. The use of electronic health records will deliver providers with accurate information. This is especially important for those that see multiple specialists, and enable a smooth transition between care settings and receive treatment in emergency

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:

Patient’s information is kept confidential and less likely to have a breach the HIPPA law. Having regular charting system, things can easily get lost. Pages can come out of the chart without knowing really knowing or noticing; personnel’s handwriting may not be legible, which cause confusing for other staff and billing, and the list can go on. With the electronic medical records, the need for paper would be less.

Medical records are not electronic, but paper, which causes them to become lost or misfiled. Physicians need readily access to patient records so they can treat patients effectively.

These enhancements will include a reminder system that will identify patients who are due for preventative care intervention, alerting systems that detect contraindications among prescribed medications, and coding systems that facilitate the selection of correct billing codes for patient encounters (Sunjansky, 1998). The benefits addressed in this piece of literature include the following:

A lengthy list of EHR benefits supports the evolution from paper to electronic medical record keeping. One such benefit, the significant reduction of needed storage space. Bulky paper charts require a lot of space and misplaced charts waste time and effort to locate. Since EHR data remains on the computer, medical practices no longer require secure on-site storage, and electronic files eliminate misplacing files. Another benefit to data remaining on the computer rather than a medical chart, electronic records allow immediate access from several locations. EHRs provide emergency room personnel access to allergies and other pertinent information of unconscious patients. The on-call physician accesses patient information from their home computer, rather than driving to the medical

health record not only allows for recording and storage of patient information but enables the

Many health care facilities are already starting to use an electronic health record in some of their departments. An electronic health record is a system that allows health care employees to input patient information into a computer system and saves that information into a database for the facility. The information that is being stored directly into the computer system is patients’ personal information (name, date of birth, address, emergency contact information, insurance information, and primary care physician and/or admitting physician), medical history, allergies, current medications, nurses and doctors’ notes, and other information that may pertain to the reason for the visit. Radiology and lab results are also saved into the electronic health record. Even though some health care facilities use a computer system to save some information, there may also be paper work that is also being used. This paper work is scanned into the facilities database so that it can also be saved and viewed if necessary.

If not, they should be shown of the patient safety issue and what and how the cost is affecting the facility. Administrators and management can be shown percentages of each floor and the number of patients that have been affected by medication errors, increased stay at the facility, and how and what medication was issued. The administrators and management can be given a presentation by PowerPoint and researched documents about the medication errors and how it has helped other facilities nationwide and possible cost of the savings to the facility for implementation. The barriers would be cost of materials, timing of transition, staffing needs for training and medical staff unwilling for change in the facility. With medication errors on the rise, patient’s safety at hand, and cost of saving the facility money on preventative measures, the administrators should lean towards the

Hillestad, R., Bigelow, J., Bower, A., Girosi, F., Meili, R., Scoville, R., & Taylor, R. (2005). Can electronic medical record systems transform health care? Potential health benefits, savings, and costs. Health Affairs,24(5), 1103-1117. doi:10.1377/hlthaff.24.5.1103

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).

I am all for electronic medical records. I have been in the healthcare field long enough to remember when patients medical records were paper. In my experience, paper medical records allow for patient privacy to be compromised. Some examples on how patient privacy can be disturbed when it comes to paper medical records are that almost anyone can go into the patient 's chart that is in the nurses station. This can include physical and occupational therapists, certified nursing assistants, nurses and physicians who are not caring for the patient. There have been times where I have walked to the nurses station at my job and it

eHealth is a relatively “new” area of medical technology, therefore, there is a need for clear EU regulations for its use. It has a big potential to improve patient care but there are a number of regulatory and ethical considerations that need to be taken into account to increase confidentiality and trust in this technology.

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).

Some benefits of this include less patient mix-up, being able to access the patient information in real time, and fewer mistakes due to human error during data recording. Productivity would increase since the doctors and nurses would not have to go to a computer to enter in the updated information. This would allow doctors and nurses to focus more on their professional duties