The Pros and Cons of Electronic Health Records
Historically, physicians and nurses documented patients’ health information using paper and pencil. This documentation created numerous errors in patients’ medical records. Patient information became lost or destroyed, medication errors occur daily because of illegible handwriting, and patients had to wait long periods to have access to their medical records. Since then technology has changed the way nurses and health care providers care for their patients. Documentation of patient care has moved to an electronic heath care system in which facilities around the world implement electronic health care systems. Electronic health records (EHR) is defined as a longitudinal electronic record of
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This technology assist the nurse in confirming patients identify by confirming the patients’ dose, time and form of medication (Helmons, Wargel, & Daniels, 2009). Having an EHR also comes with a program that allows the medical staff to scan medications so medication errors can be prevented. According to Helmons, Wargel, and Daniels (2009) they conducted an observational study in two medical –surgical units one in the medical intensive care (ICU) and one in the surgical ICU. The researchers watched 386 nurses within the two hospitals use bar code scanning before they administrated patients’ medications. The results of the research found a 58 % decrease in medication errors between the two hospitals because of the EHR containing a bar code assisted medication administration …show more content…
Montague and Asan (2013) did a field study where 100 patients’ ages 18 through 65 were observed and video recorded during their visit in a primary health clinic. The researchers wanted to see how much communication and eye contact the physicians would do with their patients when using paper charting compared to using computer charting in the EHR. The results of the study showed that physicians paid more attention to the EHR on the computer then they did their actual patients 46.5% of the time and 79% when they used paper charting (Montague & Asan, 2013). The studies showed that EHRs could hinder communication between patients and their
Electronic medical records not only effect health care professionals, but the patients of those health care providers as well. However, nurses spend the most time directly using electronic medical records to access patient date and chart. Nurses now learn to chart, record data, and interact with other health care providers electronically. Many assume that electronic means efficient, and the stories of many nurses both agree, and disagree. Myra Davis-Alston, a nurse from Las Vegas, NV, says that she “[likes] the immediate access to patient progress notes from all care providers, and the ability to review cumulative lab values and radiology reports” (Eisenberg, 2010, p. 9). This form of record keeping provides health care professionals with convenient access to patient notes, vital signs, and test results from multiple providers comprised into one central location. They also have the ability to make patients more involved in their own care (Ross, 2009). With the advancement in efficiency, also comes the reduction of costs by not printing countless paper records, and in turn, lowers health care
For years now, the healthcare system in the United States have managed patient’s health records through paper charting, this has since changed for the better with the introduction of an electronic medical record (EMR) system. This type of system has helped healthcare providers, hospitals and other ambulatory institutions extract data from a patient’s chart to help expedite clinical diagnosis and providing necessary care. Although this form of technology shows great promise, studies have shown that this system is just a foundation to the next evolution of health technology. The transformation of EMR to electronic heath record system (EHR) is the ultimate goal of the federal government.
The purpose of this paper is to discuss how Electronic Medical Records (EMR), affects healthcare delivery. I will discuss the positives and negatives this issue has on healthcare and how it effects the cost and quality for healthcare services. In addition, I will identify any potential trade-offs to cost or quality. Lastly, I will discuss how the EMR affects my job as well as any challenges or opportunities this issue presents.
“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 incentive, the government began issuing payments to those providers who “meaningfully use certified electronic health record (EHR) technology.” (hhs.gov) There are three stages that providers must progress through in order to receive theses financial incentives. Stage one is the initial stage and is met with the creation and implementation of the HER in the business. Stage two “increases health information exchange between providers.” ("United States Department of Health and Human Services | HHS.gov", n.d., p. 1) Stage three will be the continuation and expansion of the “meaningful use objectives.” ("United States Department of Health and Human Services | HHS.gov", n.d., p. 1) The hospital, where I work, initiated the HER mandate many years ago. In this paper, I will discuss the progression and the challenges that my hospital encountered while implementing the EHR mandate.
When walking into a hospital, nursing home, or physician’s office, electronic devices are used everywhere. The doctors have pagers, drugs are released from an apparatus similar to vending machines, and the patients are connected to intravenous pumps and monitors, while they lay on beds that move with the touch of a button. Everything seems to be electronic, except for patient charts. A new system, called eHealth, was devised that would make these patient charts electronic. The goal for electronic health is to unite all healthcare by making patient records available to all providers in order to improve the quality of care patients receive. eHealth can be adopted into hospitals, physicians’ offices, and even ambulatory services. A 2006 study found, “Ambulatory EHRs improve the structure of care delivery, improve clinical processes, and enhance outcomes” (Shekelle 61). With professionals working together, procedures, scans, tests, and even visits to the hospital can be eliminated and in turn reduce the hospital’s expenses. However, this reduction may not add up to the investment the facilities will have to make. Adopting this system will cost more the some facilities are able to spend. However, investing in eHealth is a risk hospitals should take to improve patient care. eHealth has to become affordable to all providers for healthcare to reach its full potential.
The purpose of this article is to review, summarize, and outline the key aspects to the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act of 2009. The outcomes discussed in this article are based on clinical, organizational, and societal outcomes based on EHR’s. Included in these outcomes is improvement in the quality of care, increase in financial and operational performance, patient and clinician satisfaction and conduction of research. The author also implicates disadvantages to EHR’s such as financial issues, changes in workflow, loss in productivity due to the learning curve caused by EHR’s and this is just to name a few. This article will use the benefits and drawbacks to further expand on the topic of electronic medical and health
There are a number of ways in which patient care can be improved with a facility that utilizes multiple charting systems. The simplest way to provide effective quality care is to implement the EHR. A EHR is an electronic system consisting of a complete patient medical health history of past and current conditions (Keller, 2016; Menachemi & Collum, 2011). In addition, to the patient’s demographic, diagnoses, medications, treatment plans, allergies, laboratory data, immunizations, and test results. EHR decreases medical errors such as misinterpretation of clinical notes, doctors orders, not having access to paper chart that have yet to be filed or has been missed file (Keller, 2016). EHR also allows for quick and easy access to diagnostic test results and patient notes that are needed for patient care. EHR will significantly enhance patient care by reducing the amount of time it takes the healthcare team to retrieve the needed health information to deliver patient care. It will also dramatically reduce medical errors that are associated with the nursing staff manually entering doctors’
This paper will identify the use of Electronic Health Records and how nursing plays an important role. Emerging in the early 2000’s, utilizing Electronic Health Records have quickly become a part of normal practice. An EHR could help prevent dangerous medical mistakes, decrease in medical costs, and an overall improvement in medical care. Patients are often taking multiple medications, forget to mention important procedures/diagnoses to providers, and at times fail to follow up with providers. Maintaining an EHR could help tack data, identify patients who are due for preventative screenings and visits, monitor VS, & improve overall quality of care in a practice. Nurse informaticists play an important role in the adaptation, utilization, and functionality of an EHR. The impact the EHR could have on a general population is invaluable; therefore, it needs special attention from a trained professional.
Implementing technology in a clinical setting is not easy and cannot be successful without a well-organized system. It is important that healthcare providers understand the electronic medication administration record (eMAR) and its role in improving patient safety. One of the most significant aspects of healthcare is the safety of our patients. Medication errors account for 44,000-98,000 deaths per year, more deaths than those caused by highway accidents or breast cancer. Several health information technologies help to reduce the number of medication errors that occur. Once of these technologies is bar-code-assisted medication administration (BCMA). These systems are designed to ensure that the right drug is being administered via the right
To begin, there are numerous advantages throughout the EHR system. Considering this, enhancing patient safety is priority in the healthcare industry. Reminders, alerts, and pop-ups are just a few of the safety features an EHR can provide. These items can prevent medication errors, by alerting a nurse or physician of a blood sugar that is out of range, or a medication with too high of a potency, such as a wrong dosage amount. Reminders can be as simple as an immunization reminder to get a flu shot. Another example could be a drug interaction between NSAIDS such as i...
Administration of medication is a vital part of the clinical nursing practice however in turn has great potential in producing medication errors (Athanasakis 2012). It has been reported that over 7,000 deaths have occur per year related to medications errors within the US (Flynn, Liang, Dickson, Xie, & Suh, 2012). A patient in the hospital may be exposed to at least one error a day that could have been prevented (Flynn, Liang, Dickson, Xie, & Suh, 2012). Working in a professional nursing practice setting, the primary goal is the nurse and staff places the patient first and provides the upmost quality care with significance on safety. There are several different types of technology that can be used to improve the medication process and will aid staff in reaching a higher level of care involving patient safety. One tool that can and should be utilized in preventing medication errors is barcode technology. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how implementing technology can aid patient safety during the medication administration process.
Advances in technology have influences our society at home, work and in our health care. It all started with online banking, atm cards, and availability of children’s grades online, and buying tickets for social outings. There was nothing electronic about going the doctor’s office. Health care cost has been rising and medical errors resulting in loss of life cried for change. As technologies advanced, the process to reduce medical errors and protect important health care information was evolving. In January 2004, President Bush announced in the State of the Union address the plan to launch an electronic health record (EHR) within the next ten years (American Healthtech, 2012).
Our clinical knowledge is expanding. The researcher has first proposed the concept of electronic health record (EHR) to gather and analyze every clinical outcome. By late 1990s computer-based patient record (CPR) replaced with the term EHR (Wager et al., 2009). The process of implementing EHR occurs over a number of years. An electronic record of health-related information on individual conforms interoperability standards can create, manage and consult with the authorized health professionals (Wager et al., 2009). This information technology system electronically gather and store patient data, and supply that information as needed to the healthcare professionals, as well as a caregiver can also access, edit or input new information; this system function as a decision support tools to the health professionals. Every healthcare organization is increasingly aware of the importance of adopting EHR to improve the patient satisfaction, safety, and lowering the medical costs.
a) integrated view of patient data: An integrated EHR must accommodate a broad spectrum of data types ranging from text to numbers and from tracings to images and video. More complex data types such as radiology images are usually delivered from human viewing-standards like DICOM. Exist for displaying most of these complex data types, and JPEG display of images is universally available for any kind of image. Example DICOM, VistA CPRS electronic health record system, which integrates a variety of text data and images into a patient report data screen including: demographics, a detailed list of the patient’s procedures, a DICOM chest X-ray image, and JPG photos. Other
Over the past decade, technological advances have paved the way for nurses to provide, quality, safe, standardized and individualized patient care (Saba & McCormick, 2015). The use of the Electronic Health Records (EHR) to manage patient data is quickly becoming widespread in the healthcare industry. The emerging use of the Electronic Health Record, is transforming how nurses care for patients. By creating and implementing an electronic, comprehensive, standardized method of recording patient data, nurses can facilitate and coordinate patient care with members of the multidisciplinary healthcare team. The use of the Electronic Health Record will promote positive