Electronic Health Records Essay

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Recommended: The importance of the electronic medical record

Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) states their vision on their website as achieving “better health through information technology”. They define their mission statement as an attempt to lead global actions towards optimizing healthcare by using informational technology (IT). When I explored theis website, I came across an explanation of Electronic Health Records (EHR), which I found useful for understanding this topic. It was described as an “electronic record of patient health information generated by one or more encounters in any care delivery setting”. According to HIMSS, EHR allows for sharing of information, such as patients’ demographics, health status, immunization record and past medical history. It can also include information regarding medications, vital signs and any other relevant reports concerning the patient. By having this information accessible to all the different health care providers who interact with a client, medical service can become more clients centered and efficient. EHR allows practitioners access to a broader narrative of the person’s life and it gathers outcomes of the health care they receive forming an up to date record of a client’s status while maintaining high quality of care. HIMSS website suggests that using EHR provides many benefits during daily tasks in a healthcare …show more content…

For example, if he or she happens to be traveling, it would assure better overall care for that person. During my clinical observation in a hospital in California, I got to see EHR in practice. One of the most interesting things I saw were computers placed on a cart with wheels, which the therapist could move around the room during the therapy session. This way, the therapist could document her observations right into the patient’s medical records, and also look up information she needed during

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