The Benefits Of Electronic Health Records

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

EPIC EpicCare is rated as the best Acute care and Ambulatory EMR for large hospitals with more than 75 physicians (KLAS Research,2017). As Houston Methodist (HM) is committed to Leading medicine and improve patient experience, the leadership decided in 2013 to shift from MethOD an EMR based on Allscripts® to a new EHR looking for an integrated solution that will help build a complete and robust patient story, easily accessible by the care team to help them make more informed decisions in order to achieve better health outcomes, improve communications, and get patients more involved by providing them with convenient online tools. HM started the vendor selection process in 2014 and in 2015 they decided to go for EPIC EpicCare

Kreps and Neuhauser (2010) reviewed significant communication concerns included in the model of efficient and humane eHealth applications to assist in directing strategic implementation and development of health information technologies. The article described the communication transformation developing in the creation of a wide-range of new eHealth applications, which included the electronic health record (Kreps & Neuhauser, 2010). The adoption, implementation, and development of a wide range of new eHealth applications have the potential to improve the quality of care patients receive, increase provider and patient access to pertinent health information, decrease healthcare mistakes, encourage acceptance of a healthy lifestyle and increase collaboration among healthcare providers (Kreps & Neuhauser, 2010). The conclusions from this article emphasized the importance of creating applications that are interoperable, easy to use, appealing, accessible, and communicate the correct information needed to yield the best possible patient care (Kreps & Neuhauser, 2010).

The health care field is implementing change within the field. There is going to be more accurate and accessible patient information saved in the systems. A lot of medical offices are implementing an EHR system due to the federal government initiatives. With the EHR many physicians can link and cross treat patients, while the EHR system will be used as a bridge technology while implementing quality care throughout the systems. EHR is intended to ensure patient safety and quality of care. Accuracy is a key and Interoperability is a complex concept with a simple end goal: creating better health for individuals, communities, nations and the world. Interoperability should be treated as a direction rather than as the end point. The hospital

Electronic Health Records (EHRs) are an important component in health care reform, but do they really bring efficiency to the practice? The extent to which practices use EHRs vary from the very basic (entering clinical notes and viewing results) to the intermediate (using e-Prescribing to indicate adverse drug prevention and provide suggestions for alternative drugs) to the advanced use (including lab and radiology order entry with testing guidance, capture of electronic charge, and evidence-based guidelines).

Over the previous eight years, there has been a significant investment of private and public funds to upsurge the adoption of Electronic health records (EHRs) across the nation. The extensive adoption and “meaningful use” of electronic health records is a national priority. EHRs come in various forms and can be utilized in distinct organizations, as interoperating systems in allied health care units, on a regional level, or nationwide. The benefit of utilizing an EHR depends heavily on provider’s uptake on technology. Benefits related to electronic health records are numerous and may have clinical, organizational and societal outcomes. However, challenges in implementing electronic health records has attained some attention, the implementation

The requirement is that eligible professionals and hospitals should be able to demonstrate “meaningful use” of certified EHRs in order to qualify for incentive payments under the Medicare EHR Incentive Program (“How to attain,” 2013). Practices who do not adopt EHR may be penalized in the form reduced Medicare reimbursements (Bendix, 2016).

“Athenahealth is a Watertown, Massachusetts-based developer of Web-based electronic health record (EHR), electronic medical billing and medical practice management software for small and medium-sized physician’s offices.”(athenahealth, 2009-2016). With all those programs and software’s included the physician and associates can accomplish sending and receiving information from one person to another. It can be used through a large wide selection of physicians as well with patient’s records.

E prescribing can be a part of the EHR in Epic, which would include patient data, and not just prescription information. When e prescriptions are utilized in Epic, the medication is checked for interactions with the patient’s other medications and allergies. Check systems within Epic look for drug-allergy, drug-drug, and how the medication reacts with the disease. In a case study of 17 physicians in an ambulatory clinic conducted by Abramson et al., error rates from prescribing decreased from 35.7 per 100 prescriptions to 12.2 per 100 prescriptions in a year of e-prescribing as reviewed in this study. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of 2009 stated that healthcare providers would have access to EHRs to ensure the meaningful use standards per the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS). Meaningful use is attained by increasing the quality of patient outcomes by having access to the medication data, the patient’s history, and diagnosis by the prescriber. Prescribing is safer, when the provider is aware of the patient’s history, current medications, and allergies, therefore better patient outcomes. In the United States, the HITECH Act and the meaningful use standards stated by CMS have increased the use of e-prescribing per Friedman (2009). The CMS made e prescribing a

In 2010, Stage 1 was introduced which focused on EHR data and sharing. Healthcare providers were obligated to store health information electronically in a standardize format that allowed authorized providers and patients to easily access the info. Stage 2 began in 2014, this stage broadened the use of EHR software for health information exchange among providers which will feature enhanced integration for e-prescribing and lab results, increased sharing of patient care summaries, and continuing to encourage patients to engage in their care in order to earn the incentives. Stage 3 began in 2016 which was set out to improve outcomes. To improve the outcome of health for patients on a large scale, the quality of health information exchanged needed to be focused on, giving providers efficient and easy access to comprehensive patient data (LeGate, 2013).

However, whereas this seems to prove the importance of EHRs there is a need to understand the steps to quality healthcare and how EHRs enable hospitals provide these aspects. This paper will try to bring forth, the true picture of Electronic Health Records effectiveness. It is important to understand what an EHR is. According to this paper, this will take the following definition

Use of EHR (electronic health records) in United States has increased in past years and have gained widespread use in the country. The use of EHR-Electronic Health Records or EMR-Electronic Medical Records and the systems that support them have gained standardized collection of health information and data for patient and healthcare providers. Because of these technologies, healthcare providers now have information about their patients at their fingertips, which has led to better and more accurate care. There are debates on using EHR. According to Mushtaq (2015), one of the most common debate is the use of EHR compliance and the value of these technologies that surround them (Mushtaq, 2015). Providers wonder if EHR use is useful and what is to be gained for the HCP-Healthcare provider. In regards to such debates and ongoing conversations, it is important to understand the definition of meaningful use and whether these technologies have resulted in meaningful use. According to Burchell (2016), The government developed the HITECH (Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health) Act of 2009, which incorporates the meaningful use program (Burchell, 2016). The program has goals that tell us how to use the meaningful use with EMR or EHR. It helps HCP and organizations alike attain, use and keep goals like patient and clinical outcomes, individual patient autonomy, and increased transparency for providers. When these goals are attained and kept it will greatly

Considering the great advances in technology, EHRs prior to January 2009 were underperforming. Often the EHR simply resembled the provider’s unique approach to healthcare. The technology existed, however the healthcare industry was not ready embracing the capabilities of the EHR. EHRs require standardization and each hospital had its own version of practicing medicine. It became apparent healthcare providers were going to continue business as usual; therefore the benefits linked to the capabilities of the EHR went unrealized. Indeed it is interesting the amount of time and legal maneuvers it took to spark the use of EHRs in hospitals. It was apparent government intervention to jump-start the EHR was inevitable. On January 9, 2009 passage of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health legislation (HITECH) opened the gateway to technology and implementation of the EHR.

It is important to understand that patients are very happy and satisfied when it comes to the electronic health system. This paper will discuss some of the benefits of an electronic health system that patients are enjoying.

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).