Disadvantages Of Electronic Medical Records

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Electronic Medical Record (EMR) is a computerized database that stores all of the medical and personal information about the patient’s care and billing information from the health care providers. Today, only the medical practices and providers can implement these systems. Also there are neither known national central storage systems, nor regional sharing of information between the networks on a national or regional level (Apter, p224). This needs to be changed because it is important to be able to see this information globally. This is going to change in the near future because there are incentives given to physicians and hospitals for switching over from paper to electronic systems and within the next few years providers will be denied a certain …show more content…

Today’s healthcare is changing and more hospitals are switching over to go paperless using computers for both charting and medical records. Computers are widely accepted in personal and professional settings. It is an essential requirement for computer literacy for computers to stay in use. Numerous advances in technology during the past ten years require that nurses not only be knowledgeable in nursing skills, but also to become educated in computer technology (Hensen, 2008). While electronic medical records and charting can be an effective time management tool, some questions have been asked about how exactly this will impact the role and process of nursing. It has also questioned the ultimate effects on patient safety and confidentiality. In order to further explain these topics, I will be addressing the individual aspects of EMR’s that nurses use every day, and how they affect collaborative care. I will also go into the impact they have on the nursing role. The EHR’s purpose can be understood as a complete record of patient encounters that automates access to information. It has the potential to streamline the clinician 's workflow in a healthcare setting, while also being the principle storage place for data and information about the health care …show more content…

However, the goal to compile patient medical history so it can be readily viewed and managed in one place is yet to be fully realized. The first EHR systems, circa 1960s, were known as clinical information systems. They influenced later systems because their processing speed and flexibility allowed many users in the system at once. Around the same time, the University of Utah jointly developed the Health Evaluation through Logical Processing (HELP), one of the first clinical decision support systems (Rosenthal, 2007). Following that, in 1968, the development of the Computer Stored Ambulatory Record (COSTAR) began at Massachusetts General Hospital in collaboration with Harvard. It was designed to perform the data management functions needed by a group practice in the care of ambulatory patients. In the 1970s, the federal government began using an enterprise-wide information system built around EHR called Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture. Prior to the Information Age, medical records were all stored in folders in secure filing cabinets in doctor’s offices, hospitals, or health departments (Rosenthal, 2007). The information within the folders was confidential, and shared solely amongst the patient and physician. Today these files are fragmented across multiple sites of treatment due to the branching out of specialty centers such as

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