Electronic Medical Records Analysis

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Electronic medical records are a digital version of a paper chart that includes a patient’s medical history from one practice. Most health clinics use electronic medical records for diagnosis and treatment for patients. Electronic medical records come with several benefits compared to paper charts. Electronic medical records allow physicians to track, identify, monitor, and improve a patient’s health quality. Physicians will be able to track a patient’s data over time. Identify when patients are due for a screening or visit. Monitor patient’s vitals over a time period and improve the overall quality of patient care (n.d., 2018). Most countries in Europe and USA are using electronic medical records. Developing countries have started …show more content…

Millions of lives have been threatened in developing countries due to HIV and AIDS. Patients are eligible for treatment, but the lack of infrastructure and trained staff creates barriers for patients. The hospital staff in developing countries have limited training. Studies have shown that programs must support health providers (Fraser et all, 2005). To implement electronic medical records, the program must be designed to initiate new treatments, follow-up and monitoring of chronic disease, and medication procurement (Fraser et all, 2005). Additionally, the use of electronic medical records will help improve the quality of health care and help physicians make decisions. For example, physicians will be able to look at previous medication orders, these will reduce medical orders because they are able to track what and when was prescribed to the patient. In developing countries, like Kenya, they made patients register once they arrived. The patient was provided with a paper form for their visit, and presented their form as they depart. Afterwards, the clerk would transcribe all the visit data into the system. By adapting to the electronic medical record, patient visits were shorter by approximately 22% and provider time per patient was reduced by 58% (Fraser et all, 2005). When this clinic in Kenya adopted to the use of the electronic medical record, it made clinic more organized and time …show more content…

EMRs must be designed to meet the criteria for health providers. However, with several different departments within the healthcare, it is challenging to have standard EMR. If there isn’t a standard EMR, it makes it difficult to communicate for all physicians within the hospital system (Williams & Boren, 2008). Additionally, the transition from paper-based to EMR systems may is complex and difficult. During the process, a lot of considerations must be taken into consideration. The patient-physician relationship and the integrity of the clinical process must be taken care of (Williams & Boren, 2008). Also, developing countries must be aware of the cost of the hard and software, security of the patient information, maintained of patient privacy and confidentiality, and maintained and integrity of medical record content, and continuity and quality of care must be maintained through the transition period (Williams & Boren, 2008). It is possible to transfer from paper-based to EMRs, however some researchers believe that the data collected in developing countries is incomplete, inaccurate, and unreliable. With unreliable data, it makes it difficult to translate to a new

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