The number one goal of the meaningful use incentive is to improve the health of Americans and the performance of the nation’s health system through health information technology. The hope is to improve quality, safety, efficiency, and reduce health disparities. As well as, engage patients and their families, improve care coordination between health care providers and to ensure adequate privacy & security protections for personal health information(CDC,2012).
As nurses we play an important role in the care of patients and therefore being part of the meaningful use project is so very important. Nurses are essential part of collecting data about our patients and our role in documentation is vitally as important. Getting to meaningful use for nursing
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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
The federal government has taken a stance to standardized care by creating incentive programs that are mandated under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) of 2009. This act encourages healthcare providers and healthcare institutions to adopt Meaningful use in order to receive incentives from Medicare and Medicaid. Meaningful use is the adoption of a certified health record system that acquires or obtains specified objectives about a patient. The objectives or measures are considered gold standard practices with the EHR system. Examples of the measures include data entry of vital signs, demographics, allergies, entering medical orders, providing patients with electronic copies of their records, and many more pertinent information regarding the patient (Friedman et al, 2013, p.1560).
Historically, physicians and nurses documented patients’ health information using paper and pencil. This documentation created numerous errors in patients’ medical records. Patient information became lost or destroyed, medication errors occur daily because of illegible handwriting, and patients had to wait long periods to have access to their medical records. Since then technology has changed the way nurses and health care providers care for their patients. Documentation of patient care has moved to an electronic heath care system in which facilities around the world implement electronic health care systems. Electronic health records (EHR) is defined as a longitudinal electronic record of
Meaningful Use and the EHR Many new technologies are being used in health organizations across the nation, 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 an EHR incentive program called the Meaningful Use Program. This program was instituted to encourage and expand the use of the HER, by providing health professionals and health organizations yearly incentive payments when they demonstrate meaningful use of the EHR ("Medicare and Medicaid," 2014).
Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act consists of several subtitles. The subtitle D of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act deals with the privacy and security issues that are associated with the electronic transmission of health information. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act requires that as of 2011 all healthcare providers are going to be presented with the opportunity of financial incentives for showing meaningful use of electronic health records (EHRs). The proposed incentives will be offered up until 2015 and after that, penalties may occur for the failure of representing the use of EHR. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act even started grants for the training centers for all staff members that are required to support a health information technology infrastructure. (www.healthcareitnews.com).
“Meaningful Use” implemented in July, 2010, set criteria’s for physicians and hospitals to adhere, in order to qualify for certain financial incentives and to be deemed meaningful users (MU) of the EMR. Meaningful use in healthcare is defined as using certified electronic health record to improve quality, safety, efficiency, and reduce mortality and morbidity. There are 3 stages of meaningful use implementation. The requirements for the 3 stages are spread out over a period of 5 years. MU mandates that physicians meet 15 core objectives and hospitals meet 14 core objectives (Hoffman & Pudgurski, 2011). The goal is to in-cooperate the patient and family in their health, empower autonomy to make decisions while improving care in all population.
The implementation of electronic health records (EHR) continues to make an impact on nursing and patient care throughout the country. As a part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, all public and private healthcare providers were required to implement electronic health records in their facilities by January 1, 2014. By demonstrating “meaningful use” of the electronic medical record, facilities are able to maintain Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement levels. Providers who show that they are meeting the “meaningful use” criteria during EHR use will receive an incentive payment from Medicare and Medicaid. “Meaningful use” is “using certified technology in EHR implementation to improve quality, safety, efficiency, and reduce health disparities; engage patients and families; improve care coordination; and maintain privacy and security of patient health information” (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, 2013).
The Meaningful Use program is a detailed curriculum set in place to validate the use of electronic health records, at the same time, managing privacy and security of patient’s confidential information (Medicare, 2010). By the same token, attaining a Meaningful Use program will play a factor in whether an institute will be given expenditures from the federal government by either the Medicare (EHR) Incentive Program or the Medicaid (EHR) Incentive Program (Medicare, 2010). Generally speaking, this system was implemented to improve the quality of care for patients, increase security measures, and decrease healthcare discrepancies (Medicare, 2010). Additionally, the Meaningful Use program encourages p...
This article addresses major aspects such as clinical trial, integrated decision support and guidance, inadequacy of paper record, and data entry. The reason that paper records are not a match for modern medicine is that they are not accessible buy multiple health professionals causing a delay in response to health care, confidentiality and security is a risk granted that anyone could physically change the record and it would become official. The author of this article predicted the basic electronic medical record features that are available today, back in 1999 and the features include integrated clinical workstations with the computational power that can assist with clinical matters, financial and administrative topics, research, and scholarly information. This report indicates that having electronic records can provide efficiency throughout the system of health care for instance the example presented in this article was the process of admission, discharge and transfer of a patient can be changed drastically due to it initially taking hours to going from in and out in minutes. This article will provide the foundation of EMR’s and how time for reform had come more than a decade ago and it’s time for reform once again. With the examples and strategic tactics provided, it is fairly simple to display the evolution of Electronic medical records from
Meaningful Use (MU) is defined as a healthcare provider’s usage of certified EHR technology in a way that can be measured largely in quality and in quantity. By establishing meaningful use using an Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) certified EHR program; healthcare providers can collect stimulus money, as arranged through the HITECH act of 2009. MU is designed to improve healthcare quality, efficiency, safety, and help to reduce health disparities. Also this helps to maintain privacy and security of patient healthcare information. (EHR Incentives & Certification, 2014)
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 IOM report warned that the nursing profession must change, or it would not be able to meet the growing demands that are emerging as a result of health reform, new technologies and an aging population. (George Washington University, 2013) Nurse face with the new opportunities and challenges in reforming future health system. Nurses play an increasingly important role in leadership Nursing health care field is in the process of developing advance information and management systems for the goal of patient center care. And collaborate with all health care team That explicates that nurses will require advance information skills in order to uses this
Information Systems/Technology and patient care technology for the improvement and transformation of health care is an important part of the DNP. Technology has transformed every aspect of human life in positive ways. Technology brought efficiency and improved healthcare deliverance system. Healthcare technologies enabled practitioners to better understand disease process and how to implement best treatment plan. DNP programs across the country embrace information systems and technology in their nursing curriculum because, it prepares nursing students to be innovative and deliver best care (AACN, 2006). DNP graduates must have the ability to use technology to analyze and disseminate critical information to find solutions that
If health information technology has been adopted widely, there would be more than $81 billion annually save in the United States only (Gee & Newman, 2013). Despite the vast improvement of health information technology in the current century when compared to the past, there still some challenges in adopting the technology. For example, patients and healthcare providers’ frustration with the current system, and a high cost of the information technology can be mentioned. However, healthcare organizations are thoroughly delivering care, access the patients’ health data, run their analysis for better health outcomes, and gain opportunities to better quality improvement through many electronic health delivery systems (Health information technology, n.d.; Wager, Lee, & Glaser,
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).