Electronic Health Record Implementation

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the importance of Electronic Health Record Implementation. Furthermore, the paper will discuss the benefits of Electronic Medical Record to the healthcare industry and patients.

Electronic Health Record Implementation

Brief Overview

EHRs have the support of a wide range of stakeholders. The federal and provincial governments are making significant financial investment in an EHR and provincial authorities and local health go ahead with the implementation. A major reason prompting the establishment of EHRs is the potential for better clinical outcomes (e.g. improving patient safety, reduced waiting time, and the management of chronic diseases). An objective of improving the sharing of patient information between physicians and other health professionals is to achieve better patient outcomes. Thus, the EHR could facilitate collaborative care. EHRs could also simplify the process by which patient's access to their own health information, enabling them to engage more easily in their own care.

Policy makers and administrators of health services expect gains in quality and efficiency through access to information for purposes of research and analysis, policy development, planning systems health, and resource management. As such, their commitment to the EHR is motivated by the potential gains made from the secondary use (e.g. planning of health systems). Individual physicians expect increased access to information will increase as the quality of care that management of their time and practice (Eysenbach, 2001). In turn, patients expect an improvement in the quality of care if any health professional in any health facility, anytime access to their information. However, patients want and should expect to receive assurance that their personal health will be accurate and protected.

Clinical History of Electronic Health Record Implementation

The advancement of Information Technology and Communications (ICT) in all areas of society that facilitate and improve our existence has substantially modified our habits of conduct at the time to learn, work and even entertain. The developed hardware and software have provided an effective tool to solve many problems, including those inherent to the health sector. We must understand the peculiarities of this sector for the development of systems and tools that allow us to facilitate the management and exchange of information between professionals.

There is no dispute between the different levels when doctors agree on the need to replace the outdated and cumbersome paper by a system of communication and storage of information (McGee, 2009).

The Medical Records (HC) on paper has been used throughout the centuries. Ease of use is to assume that a minimum cost of investment. But this kind of support, if you weigh, has a number of distinct disadvantages: the fragility of paper, the great need for storage space, the organizational effort and maintenance, disorder and lack of uniformity of dossiers to be completed by different physicians, illegible handwriting (indirect cause a 2006 study by the Institute of Scientific American (IOM) of more than 7000 deaths per year and 1.5 million poisonings for taking the wrong medication 2), the complex to quickly locate documents if they have been ...