LTC Facilities: A Case Study

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) states that in order to realize meaningful use of the EHR technology, healthcare providers are obliged to apply the technology in a approach that enriches quality, safety, and efficiency of healthcare delivery; ebbs healthcare inconsistencies; involves patients and families; enriches care coordination; expands population and public health; and guarantees sufficient privacy and security guards for personal health information. (U.S Department of Health and

In regards to technology and how its influences healthcare today we see the use of EHRs, which allows for a high capacity healthcare environment by condensing patient information into an easily accessible form for all healthcare professionals. “EHRs allow us to collect meaningful data to determine the efficacy in which our units are functioning” (Biddle & Milstead 2016, p.12). This technology can help manage the high capacity hospital environment while not compromising quality. This

The staff employed in a medical facility depends on many things to keep the quality of patient care in the positive and efficient. Physicians and nursing need the current and most

EHR was created to have a technical way to securely exchange private and personal medical health information in hopes to improve the quality of care, decrease medical errors, limiting paper use, reduction of health care cost, and increasing a person access to affordable health care. A mandate was created for EHR stating that health records can be accessible to all facilities with patients having the capability to access their own health records at any time. Ameliorating the quality and convenience of care given to a patient, allow for cost saving measures, engage the patient and family to participate in their care, improve accuracy of medical diagnosis, and enhance the efficiency of the overall outcome of the patients’ health.

Implementation of EHR shows improvement of quality of care by the nurses ability to access the patient chart at the bedside, decreasing the risk of wrong patient errors.

Hence, EHR 's are inherently complex amalgamations of diverse subsystems targeted toward varied users. The stakeholders are the users and must have a role in implementing any IT or EHR system into its work flow. An EHR can be customized to accommodate any environment depending on the level of expertise of the vendor and how long they have been in the business of creating an optimum system that 's customized to fit the organizations needs. For the most part, EHR 's must be designed for efficient, error free use. Ideally, an EHR is a system that encompass all the subsystems that make a hospital meet "meaningful use" criteria to acquire incentives for adopting EHR into practice. In the next five years, EHR adoption will no longer be a luxury, it will be a "MUST". EHR 's and other health information technology will be a necessity to practice medicine (econsultant.com, 2010). Rather than purchase several standalone systems, it would behoove one , in my opinion , to purchase an EHR that would satisfy all the needs of the stakeholders, the physician , nurses and other hospital staff and all parties involved in the tertiary practice too. Although LWMS 's budget is not large enough to accommodate the full cost of implementing an EHR,

In the recent years, EHR implementation has been one of the biggest change that occurred in the health care delivery system. The adoption of EHR system which aims to improve the quality of healthcare, however, has met a lot of issues and barriers that are detrimental to its success. Thus, for any healthcare organization to achieve a favorable outcome after the EHR implementation, numerous factors have to be examined. Merrill (2010) has listed down the top ten factors for a successful EHR adoption. It includes right leadership, shared vision, right culture, governance, physicians, nurses and key stakeholders are engaged early and accountable to lead the clinical transformation, resources, clinical content standardization, realistic timelines and expectations, effective training and communication plan, and right vendor partnership relationship.

EHRs adoption is an essential part of improving patient safety and the quality of health care by reducing errors, allowing access to complete and accurate medical information to produce better patient outcomes. Although, it seems like a win/win situation there are still some challenges that appear when implementing an EHR. Some challenges would be Time, Cost, Work- Flow Distribution, Security/Privacy, and Interoperability just to name few. Interoperability is defined as the ability of a computer system or software to exchange or make use of information, which can create a major issue for any organization if these systems are not communicating properly. Security and Privacy are always a concern because implementing HIPAA measures is not an easy task. Not only do you have to comply with the federal level organization still need to recognize state laws which can often be more stringent. Especially, when you need to cover areas such as mental health, drug and alcohol services, genetic testing, HIV, and family planning issues. Change management would be enacted to overcome any issues involving process change resistance. It is a methodical approach and application of knowledge that use tools and resources to deal with this type of change. Methodologies would

EHRs can positively influence workplace efficiency and communication and improve productivity with better access to and organization of patient data (McGinn, et al., 2011). EHRs can improve operational efficiency by providing the capability of sharing of information within the practice. Additionally, health information can be shared with external health care organizations provided the proper interoperability infrastructure is in place. Physicians can access patient information anytime and anywhere the system is enabled, enhancing patient safety as well as quality and continuity of care, particularly for physicians on call or working at multiple sites. They also can have access to drug recalls or other alerts provided through the EHR.

Change itself is never easy and sometimes the road of working out the kinks in a system can be quite frustrating. However, once implemented, the work load is lightened, and the time has come to reap the many benefits of EHR 's. Once implemented EHR 's will make every staff member 's job easier and here are some of the many ways it does just that! First, EHR 's reduce paperwork and eliminate both confusion and errors caused by the infamous “physicians ' handwriting”. This in turn results in less human errors and less duplication of effort. With EHR 'S we are no longer chasing charts, or even worse, loosing them all together. Just think of all the space that is saved by no longer having to store paper charts. With the implementation of EHR 's every healthcare member including all staff, physicians, hospitals, and insurance companies can share in enhanced information which results in much improved patient care, and an improvement in overall management of a practice. Everyone wins! With EHR 's data regarding reports from labs, radiology, tests, and procedures can be shared with all involved resulting in better outcomes in patient care. For the medical biller and coder, EHR 's allow a much quicker ability to electronically file a claim instead of handwriting it out on a paper claim. With EHR 's we have more accurate claims with less rejections resulting in speedy claims. A medical office specialist no longer has to take time

Giving the facts from the Real-World Case by purchasing the same EHR system as Community Hospital, physicians have confidence that they will have better control of care over their patients. In addition, they will be able to write orders, advise medications and also have the capability to get into the providers EHR systems while covering in other specific areas of the hospital. For this reason, some pros of the EHR consist of better patient care, better-quality care coordination, upgraded diagnostics and patient outcomes and the applying of a computerized physician order entry; this allows in the decrease of transcript mistakes related to poor writing on behalf of the physicians for either procedures or prescriptions. (HealthIT, 2015) Regrettably, there is also a downside, as not all areas of the hospital, such as the Physical Therapy unit, Nurse’s station and Nutrition department are ready to engage with the new technology.

Another beneficial feature of EHR systems is that they allow different authorized professionals to access your information from anywhere at any point in time. If a patient checks into the Emergency Room, is moved to Radiology for imaging, then moved to Orthopedics for surgery and finally placed in a bed for recovery, each individual throughout that process will have access to that patient’s medical records without having to communicate with each department. This fosters an

“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

Electronic health records (EHR’s) have many advantages, but there are plenty of disadvantages. EHR’s were created to manage the many aspects of healthcare information. Medical professionals use them daily and most would feel lost without it. Healthcare organizations were encouraged to adopt EHR’s in 2009 due to the fact that a bill passed known as The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act). “The HITECH Act outlines criteria to achieve “meaningful use” of certified electronic records. These criteria must be met in order for providers to receive financial incentives to promote adoption of EHRs as an integral part of their daily practice”, (Conrad, Hanson, Hasenau & Stocker-Schneider, 2012).

Another big plus of the EHRs is that studies have shown that it has helped providers improve accuracy of diagnoses and health outcomes (Couch, 2008). For example, nurses could have reliable access to patients complete health information and have pictures which would help with whatever problem they might encounter. EHR doesn’t just keep patients medications and allergies, it also check for problems whenever a new medication is prescribed and it also alerts the nurse of potential problems (Couch, 2008). EHRs can also tell the nurse if potential safety problems occur, which helps them avoid more serious consequences for patients, which can lead to better outcomes. The EHRs can also help nurses quickly identify and correct operational problems, which compared to the paper-based setting, those kinds of problems would be more difficult to correct. It can also help