Advantages And Disadvantages Of Paper Medical Records

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Medical records play an essential role at any hospital, because it is considered as a depository of patient 's health observations, analysis, and physical examinations. Since the 1920s, paper medical records have gradually grown all over the world. They are easy to use for senior doctors, nurse, physicians, and anyone with medical expertise, and all of them can use it without any additional skills. It revolutionized the field of medical services, which benefited both patients and medical service providers.
The daily use of paper-based medical records sometimes become out of control, because these records have some problems according to their nature. First, the paper-based records need to record by hand and store in physical database that can …show more content…

Backup of the paper records must be done by hand or by automatic copier that can cost the hospital a lot of money to copy the records and then transport them to a safe archive.
Furthermore, paper-based medical records have issues with security and confidentiality, because we cannot determine who has disclosed and seen these papers, and that violates the data confidentiality and integrity, as anyone can alter, duplicate, or misuse the paper documents. Even though paper medical records have enlivened the medical sector and brought about a quantum leap in patients’ care, they still have some shortcomings that cannot be overlooked. Consequently, health care providers continuously try to find a perfect replacement for paper medical records that can save time, space, and cost at the same …show more content…

As the evolution of electronic medical records continued, there were also new amendments and laws made to regulate the privacy of the electronic medical records. Thus, the United States Congress declared a new law, which is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and president Bill Clinton signed this law in 1996. This law was introduced to fulfill some of the privacy and security issues that faced healthcare in the United

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