Abstract

I am a complete advocate for switching to computer-based medical records. This is done completely electronically, versus the other paper method of dealing with medical records. Using hard copies of patient records are still commonly used in hospitals and doctor’s offices, but are quickly becoming a thing of the past. Healthcare professionals are trading in the traditional pen and notepad for electronic data entry and storage devices. Keeping records electronically allows all healthcare professionals involved to have access to all of the patient’s medical history, status of immunizations and lab results as well as x-rays. A record of the patient’s known allergies and medications, and billing and personal information such as height and weight.

Electronic Health Records

The submission of medical health records electronically has been helping the medical field, hospitals and doctors offices greatly since being implemented. Using electronic health records offers much better continuity, communication, coordination and accountability of patient records. I read in an article about EHRs and sums up what people using the computerized electronic health records feel, it seems that building a virtualization of EHRs can be very expensive, but ultimately works well. And does everything that they need it to. Hudson, NY-based Columbia Memorial Hospital has used an EHR to support its clinical works system since early 2010, one that serves 26 clinical locations and 300 providers (Rourke, 2011.)
The continuity of care for the patient at hand is of utmost importance, if we take a look at a the lesser method of paper and file records, you can see it can be a very long winded process of toing and froing from one doctor’s offices to the next, phone calls chasing the records. This all causes delays in the results of finding anything out which can be very hard waiting for the patient. But with using EMRs, they make it much easier and faster to get the much needed and sought after results. Also it cuts time considerable down because now a doctor doesn’t have to review a long winded essay about the other physicians thoughts because anything of any importance like medical alerts and reminders. The computers have some “built- in intelligence capabilities, such as recognizing abnormal lab results, or potential life-threatening drug interactions. (Koeller, 2002.)
Communication in the medical industry is a must Before when a secretary or receptionist of a doctor’s offices needed to schedule referrals it was done over the telephone fax or post which as we all know can take a long time, even if it is internal it can take anywhere up to a day or two unless someone was to personally hand it to the secretary that is needing the referral. That being said, it can sometimes sit on a desk or a file waiting to be sorted and may possibly be lost in the hustle and bustle of a busy doctor’s office same with a fax and a phone call may take just as long to get through for a busy receptionist. But now with using electronic health records and emails all of the waiting for the most part is a thing of the past. Communication is done quickly and efficiently without sitting on the phone, test results are sent the same way.
The coordination of a patients medical records can be a tricky thing, keeping them up to date and where they need to be at all times. It is said that on average a patient can have around eleven different health records floating around in the healthcare industry. This is due to people moving locations, or just wanting to change their healthcare provider and most probably because over the life of a person they have a number of different ailments which would mean they need to see different clinics that specialize in the particular area of need. And all to commonly records aren’t shared between the different treatment physicians. This is all cleared up with electronic health record, because the help with integrating the clinical viewpoint of all the different physicians seen and also facilitate care given by the implementation of medical terminology. This is a key factor as medical terminology is universal and helps express what the clinical tests and physicians are viewing for comparison and treatment.
When you are talking a set of patient’s medical records they may have been touched over a hundred times in their life span, this can lead to many issues of accountability of patient information and who exactly sees and riffles through them. When are they being handled and by who and where are they going and how quickly can I receive them if needed, are some of the questions that come to mind when looking at the accountability of a patients medical records. The wonderful thing about electronically keeping patient records makes old sub-basement medical records a thing of the past. All of the questions asked are answered through the wonderment of electronically filing. When someone needs to access a patients records it is id and password protected this means they have a given user name and password to the data system used. Doing this time stamps the entry or viewing and doesn’t allow anyone that has no business viewing the information. There for the integrity of the patient is intact. The positive points aside, about using electronic records in the healthcare industry. There are also drawbacks with using them instead of the paper-method. First of all Electronic record systems are costly you are talking computers with sizably storage systems and a even bigger back up system, not to mention the software included. And more then likely if you are integrating it in the doctors office now you have to get your staff trained on the new software. This can cause time and money, and mistakes. Not to mention computers and hardware aren’t very portable, not like a file that you can take to your desk and review. In conclusion I don’t hide the fact that I prefer using for personal experience electronic methods of keeping patient medical records versus the dated method of files and paper. When I lived in England I worked in a hospital for the National Health Service, I was a notes and data clerk – My official title. In that job I had to deal with both the hard copy of files and the data entry of finding those files. Let me tell you it was nothing sort of a search and rescue to track down some of those case notes. Climbing up latters sorting through huge book cases crammed packed. And if they weren’t there I had to hop on a bus and go to other hospitals and do the same there, a nightmare to say the least. So yes I think that electronic health records are the way forward by far, there is a lot of room for improvement but the benefits speak for themselves.

References:

Koeller, Rodney L. (2002.) IT Applications in Healthcare: The
Electronic Medical Record. Retrieved from: http://faculty.ed.umuc.edu/~meinkej/inss690/koeller.pdf. Received on: August 25, 2011.
Rourke, Katherine. (August 26, 2011.) Ready Or Not, Cloud-Based EMRs Getting More Popular. Received from: http://www.hospitalemrandehr.com/author/katherine/. Received on: August 27, 2011.
Viola, Allison; Washington, Lydia. (July 9,2011.) Accountable Care: Implications for Managing Health Information. Received from: www.ahima.org. Received on: August 27, 2011.