Essay on "Electronic Health Records"

Essay 3 pages (1248 words) Sources: 3

[EXCERPT] . . . .

In addition, as these electronic records systems are more widely used in the healthcare industry, certain issues have become more pressing: there is a greater need of consistent standards regarding terminologies, data quality and form structure; the movement toward patient empowerment over and access to records increases the importance of system-wide accuracy, security, confidentiality and access-control (Open Clinical, 2011). Fortunately, through system refinements and education, multi-disciplinary professionals are recognizing and continually dealing with these barriers/issues in order to ultimately make the healthcare industry's system-wide use of electronic health records a highly effective tool for excellent patient care.

Case Study Showing Advantages and Drawbacks of Electronic Health Records

The source of this empirical information is a nurse practitioner in Psychiatry who: practiced Registered Nursing in hospitals in the States of New York and Rhode Island for 26 years; obtained her further degrees/certifications/licenses to work as a nurse practitioner and prescribe psychotropic medications; has worked as a nurse practitioner for hospitals and clinics in the State of Rhode Island for the past 12 years; uses both paper and electronic health records in her practice. In "Katherine's" experience, electronic medical records have all the good and bad characteristics of computers; in addition, regulations/practices lag behind the technology and ultimately create more work. Electronic medical records are good in that: she can more easily track trends for each patient, which is very important when monitoring and adjusting prescriptions; a stable patient's prescriptions can be refilled with a single computer click; she can access other professionals' notes and lab work, which saves her time and saves her patients' money by avoiding duplication. The current drawbacks of electronic medical records are: at this point, the computer software systems are so poorly programmed and there is so little money available for updated software that she must click screen after screen for each patient, which takes considerably more time; when power goes down, which it recently did due to a Winter storm, they have no access to some of their patients' most vital information and had to reschedule all appointments; patients must give written permission to integrate all their records and only 10% of her patients have done so, which means that she must usually work with a mix of computer systems and written records; she can hand-write a scrip in seconds but is now required to use a slower computer system, then back it up with phone calls to pharmacists and handwritten or typed, signed records. Having worked with electronic records for approximately six years, Katherine believes that there will come a day when electronic medical records are as easy and widespread as laptop computers; however, there are significant "bugs," delays and outdated regulations that currently create more time-consuming administrative work and treatment difficulties.

Conclusion

Governmental bodies, Information Technology professionals and healthcare professionals are working together to toward the ideal of a streamlined industry-wide system of electronic records. Though there are still barriers and issues that make the use of electronic records more difficult at times, these multi-disciplinary professionals continue to refine and adapt these systems. Presenting problems inherent in new computer systems, pockets of resistance and regulations/requirements that lag behind technology, healthcare professionals nevertheless envision the day when electronic health records become a seamless and highly effective tool for excellent patient care and lower healthcare costs.

Works Cited

Institute of Medicine. (2003). Key capabilities of an electronic health record system. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

National Research Council. (2004). Patient safety: Achieving a new standard for care. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

Open Clinical.… READ MORE

How to Reference "Electronic Health Records" Essay in a Bibliography

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