The Adoption Of The Electronic Health Record ( Ehr )

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Regulations and Implementations Introduction The adoption of the electronic health record (EHR) is a clever program and promising to the health care delivery system, which is beneficial to health care providers, hospitals, and consumers/patients. Subsequently, the federal government offers an EHR incentive program or popularly known as meaningful use in health care to accelerate the implementation. One of the major components of the meaningful use standards is interoperability of the system wherein exchanges and use of information can be utilized to improve the quality of care. Additionally, EHR increases the efficiency of reporting, speeds up the report retrieval to prevent order redundancy, and improves decision making through immediate results and information availability. On the other hand, patient still questions one aspect of the EHR and health modernization regarding personal information privacy and security. Consequentially, a vast number of patients fear of sharing their important information due to the unmanageable risks regarding privacy and security breaches. Impact of HIPAA and HITECH Regulations on Health Care System The ratification of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act in February 2009 as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) heightens the planning and implementation of EHR adoption. As a result, the federal government made the health information exchange (HIE) a national priority. In this regard, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) is sanctioned by HITECH to establish program and projects to improve health care quality, safety, and efficiency through the promotion of health IT. There are various government... ... middle of paper ... ...d procedure that will address several issues, thus, encourage various lawmakers to create federal and state laws that will tackle the program’s shortcomings in compliance issues. Conclusion In conclusion, the nationwide adoption of EHR is still not perfect but in better status. Aside from the HITECH Act provided incentive programs, the organization should acquire additional funding from other grants. The acquisition of software and hardware that are resilient to change, which can handle frequent upgrades relative to functionality, safety, and security is an advantage to maintain a functional EHR. Finally, interoperability is considered as the pillar of the EHR system, therefore, a system that will offer a safe and secured environment during the transmission of PHI is a must to achieve the improvement in patient care safety, efficiency, and increased productivity.

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