Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Security safeguards for electronic medical records
Security safeguards for electronic medical records
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Security safeguards for electronic medical records
Advantages of the EHR
In a study by Jacalyn Rogers, Sonya Sebastian, William Cotton, Cheryl Pippin and Jenna Merandi they showed that the number of immunization errors were greatly reduced with the addition of age specific alerts into the electronic prescribing system, With the electronic prescribing system they were able to put age restrictions on different immunizations as well as restrictions on different medications to avoid errors in prescribing a medication to a patient that they either might be allergic to or that might interfere with their current medication. After their seven-month research period they found that with this education on how to properly use this system that prescribing errors decreased from 57% to 25%. They concluded
…show more content…
This study demonstrates the importance of EHRs as this study is being conducted. Electronic health records displayed biases towards sick patients in order to demonstrate subject selection based on sufficient laboratory results and medication orders. The correlation between the adequacy of electronic health record data for clinical research and the underlying patient health status was shown. The data suggest that a negative binomial regression model displays the relationship between patient health status and the sufficiency of EHRs. Variations of the counts of laboratory results and medication orders were shown greater than the means. Effective data sufficiency allows researchers to minimize missing data when reusing electronic health records for research. This also introduces a bias towards the selection of sicker patients (Rusanov, Weiskopf, Wang & Weng …show more content…
The article talks about how when a breach occurs, whether it be from a paper or electronic record, how physicians are suppose to reveal to the patient when information has been compromised. The difference however, is when medical information is compromised within the EHR physicians have more of a responsibility to share with patients about the breach. Whereas with a breach of information within the paper records they do not have the same responsibility because since they are just on paper, the breach cannot be easily tracked. With the EHR having so much more patient data than the standard paper records, there is a lot more to protect, which is why they require so many authorized accesses and passwords (Sade,
For years now, the healthcare system in the United States have managed patient’s health records through paper charting, this has since changed for the better with the introduction of an electronic medical record (EMR) system. This type of system has helped healthcare providers, hospitals and other ambulatory institutions extract data from a patient’s chart to help expedite clinical diagnosis and providing necessary care. Although this form of technology shows great promise, studies have shown that this system is just a foundation to the next evolution of health technology. The transformation of EMR to electronic heath record system (EHR) is the ultimate goal of the federal government.
Many new technologies are being used in health organizations across the nations, which are being utilized to help improve the quality of health care. Electronic Health Records (EHRs) play a critical role in improving access, quality and efficiency of healthcare ("Electronic health records," 2014). In order to assist in expanding the use of EHR’s, in 2011 The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS), instituted a EHR incentive program called the Meaningful use Program. This program was instituted to encourage and expand the use of the HER, by providing health professional and health organizations yearly incentive payments when they demonstrate meaningful use of the EHR ("Medicare and medicaid," 2014). The Meaningful use program will be explored including its’ implications for nurses, nursing, national policy, how the population health data relates to Meaningful use data collection in various stages and finally recommendations for beneficial improvement for patient outcomes and population health and more.
Did you ever think about how much time is spent on computers and the internet? It is estimated that the average adult will spend over five hours per day online or with digital media according to Emarketer.com. This is a significant amount; taking into consideration the internet has not always been this easily accessible. The world that we live in is slowly or quickly however you look at it: becoming technology based and it is shifting the way we live. With each day more and more people use social media, shop online, run businesses, take online classes, play games, the list is endless. The internet serves billions of people daily and it doesn’t stop there. Without technology and the internet, there would be no electronic health record. Therefore, is it important for hospitals and other institutions to adopt the electronic health record (EHR) system? Whichever happens, there are many debates about EHR’s and their purpose, and this paper is going to explain both the benefits and disadvantages of the EHR. Global users of the internet can then decide whether the EHR is beneficial or detrimental to our ever changing healthcare system and technology based living.
Overview: E-prescribing systems enable the electronic transmissions of prescriptions to pharmacies from the provider's office. The promise of e-prescribing in regard to patient safety is reduction in the time gap between point of care and point of service, reduction in medication errors, and improved quality of care. This paper will give a brief overview concentrating on the reduction in medication errors and the challenges that remain with electronic prescriptions.
Portability can improve patient care. Patients no longer have to “tote” their cumbersome medical records around anymore. EHR’s give physicians and clinicians access to critical healthcare information in the palm of their hand, which ultimately leads to improved patient care outcomes. EHR’s also provide security to vital medical and personal healthcare information. Organizations like HIPPA defines policies, procedures and guidelines for preserving the privacy and security of discrete distinguishable health information (HHS.gov,
Unfortunately, the quality of health care in America is flawed. Information technology (IT) offers the potential to address the industry’s most pressing dilemmas: care fragmentation, medical errors, and rising costs. The leading example of this is the electronic health record (EHR). An EHR, as explained by HealthIT.gov (n.d.), is a digital version of a patient’s paper chart. It includes, but is not limited to, medical history, diagnoses, medications, and treatment plans. The EHR, then, serves as a resource that aids clinicians in decision-making by providing comprehensive patient information.
The main purpose of EHRs is to mainly exchange health information electronically to help improve quality and safety for patients. Four pros of EHRs is to provide accurate and recent information of the patients, allow for quick access to the patient records, share the health information securely, and make patient records and notes legible. These four points are important and necessary because the goal overall is to improve public health. Patient information should always be updated and current. Health professionals need to easily have access to patient records to either update them or verify the information. Also, health professionals can now avoid any discrepancies with electronic records verses when records were completely on paper.
This paper will identify the use of Electronic Health Records and how nursing plays an important role. Emerging in the early 2000’s, utilizing Electronic Health Records have quickly become a part of normal practice. An EHR could help prevent dangerous medical mistakes, decrease in medical costs, and an overall improvement in medical care. Patients are often taking multiple medications, forget to mention important procedures/diagnoses to providers, and at times fail to follow up with providers. Maintaining an EHR could help tack data, identify patients who are due for preventative screenings and visits, monitor VS, & improve overall quality of care in a practice. Nurse informaticists play an important role in the adaptation, utilization, and functionality of an EHR. The impact the EHR could have on a general population is invaluable; therefore, it needs special attention from a trained professional.
The EHR system that Torrance Memorial Medical Center in Torrance, CA uses is Cerner EHR system.
We can look at the patient’s allergies, their vital signs, and even their most recent weight which is important when we have a patient with Congested Heart Failure. Being able to share a patient’s medical record and all their health care encounters is so vital in the complete care of a patient. Being able to assess a patient’s medical record electronically is also important when it comes to prescribing medications because it can alert the provider to potential conflicts with other medications that the patient has been prescribed. And if a patient comes into the emergency room unconscious from an accident, the provider can still look up the patient and adjust care as needed. The electronic medical record is important in the transition of care of a patient from one provider to another. For example, when a patient is hospitalized and then discharged, they are asked to follow up with their primary care doctor within two weeks. With the provider being able to consider the patient’s electronic medical record they can see what care the patient received while they were hospitalized and vice versa, the emergency room provider is also able to consider the patient’s electronic medical record to see the care plan for the patient and the care the patient has been receiving from their primary care provider. According to HealthIT, Electronic Medical Records can reveal potential safety problems when they occur, helping providers avoid more serious consequences for patients and leading to better patient outcomes. Electronical Medical Records can help providers quickly and systematically identify and correct operational problems. In a paper-based setting, identifying such problems is much more difficult, and correcting them can take
An Electronic Health Record is a computerized form of a patient’s medical chart. These records allow information to be readily available to authorized providers during a patient’s encounter with the healthcare system. These systems do not only contain medical histories, current medications and insurance information, they also track patients’ diagnoses, treatment plans, immunization dates, allergies, radiology images and lab tests/results (source). The fundamental aspect of EHRs is that they are able to share a patient’s information quickly across service lines and even between different healthcare organizations. Information is at the fingertips of lab techs, primary care physicians, pharmacies, clinics, etc. The goal of EHR implementation is to drastically decrease the amount of preventable medical errors that occur each year.
The purpose of the Electronic Health Record is to provide a comprehensive, standardized and universal digital version of a patient 's health records. The availability of a patient 's digital health record provides health information and data for critical thinking and evidence based decision-making, aggregates patient data for quality assurance and research. The Electronic Health Record has been, "identified as a strategy for effectively and efficiently coordinating and maintaining documentation of patients health histories and as a secure method of providing more informed clinical decision making" (MNA, 2006).
The utilization of Electronic Health Records will lead to better quality outcomes for both the patient and healthcare providers, by improving patient care, practice efficiencies & cost savings, increasing patient participation and family engagement. These advanced outcomes may be proficient by imploring better treatment options for providers using EHRs. Although EHR is an advancement for the healthcare field, changes are needed to protect the patients. For EHR to achieve viability, the patients must be convinced that their well-being will be secured; if this confidentiality is endangered the patient’s trust will be compromised (Layman, 2008). Nurses and Nurse Practitioners will play an essential part in the management of health
Journal Title: Impact of Health Information Technology on the Quality of Patient Care. Introduction: Our clinical knowledge is expanding. The researchers have first proposed the concept of electronic health records (EHR) to gather and analyze every clinical outcome. By the late 1990s, computer-based patient records (CPR) were replaced with the term EHR (Wager et al., 2009).
In 2014, the Journal of the American Pharmacists Association published a study that measured the impact a clinical pharmacist had on the rates of vaccination errors in a pediatric primary care setting.3 The comparison clinic had no pharmacist on staff. At the first pediatric clinic the pharmacist was responsible for frequently reviewing patient charts and educating both the patients and providers. The study reported that over a 3 month period, the error rate was 0.28% at the pharmacist staffed clinic, compared to 2.7% at the comparison site.3 Furthermore, there were 132 patients at the comparison site that had a needed immunization overlooked, compared to just 46 patients that missed an immunization at the clinic where the pharmacist reviewed