Digital Revolution in Healthcare: Benefits of Electronic Medical Records (EMR) - Essay Sample

Introduction

Electronic medical record (EMR) refers to the systematized collection and storage of patient population in a digital form. EMR allows the sharing and transfer of patient's medical records from one department into the other, thus allowing the administering of quality health services to individuals. Some of the aspects of patient information contained in electronic records include a patient's medical history, an individual's demographics, immunization status, and personal statics such as weight and age as well as laboratory test results. The use of EMR in health care facilities allows health care providers to work easily since they can access a patient's information from digital and computer networks. Electronic medical records enhance the automation of a patient's information and enhance the streamlining of the clinician's workflow.

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The medical error refers to a preventable event that is capable of causing harm due to inappropriate medication and treatment. Some of the medical errors include omission, drug preparation error, medication, unauthorized drug error, dosage, and wrong time errors. The main reasons that lead to medical errors include poor communication among physicians as well as having medications and drugs that sound alike (Dubovitskaya, Xu, Ryu, Schumacher, & Wang, 2017). Dosage and infusion rates are among the most common types of medical errors that occur within healthcare organizations. Besides, medical errors occur due to inefficient procedures in the healthcare profession or failing to follow the set guidelines and regulations by regulatory bodies in the health sector.

Medical errors lead to many negative effects such as new conditions, skin disfigurement, severe pain, and injury and sometimes can lead to the death of a patient (Halpern, Horng, Choi, & Sontag, 2016). For instance, omission error occurs when an appropriate medication and treatment is not provided to a patient. The use of electronic medical records is one of the solutions that healthcare organizations embrace to reduce medical errors.

Potential Benefits of the Electronic Medical Record

Electronic medical records provide many benefits to patients and healthcare providers as well as to healthcare facilities. EMR helps in providing better health care by improving various aspects such as patient care and safety, better communication, timeliness, effectiveness, communication, and education as well as patient-centeredness (Alpert, 2016). Some of the benefits of EMR include financial incentives, improved quality of health care, increased patient access, convenience, and efficiency as well as reduced operational costs and space. For instance, the use of EMR improves physician-patient interaction, thus leading to better communication. Through proper communication, among clinicians and other healthcare providers, there is more reliable prescribing of drugs, thus leading to patient's safety.

EMR helps in reducing costs by decreasing paperwork as well as reduced duplication of roles by healthcare workers. Besides, EMR enhances patient safety by providing accurate and up-to-date data regarding the patient (Alpert, 2016). Also, EMR enhances patient care by enabling quick access to the patient record and as well as a coordinated approach. EMR achieves the goal of streamlined workflows among healthcare workers by increasing the productivity of the workers. For instance, both healthcare workers and patients have less to fill out and sign, thus leading to streamline workflows. Also, EMR allows healthcare organizations to create automatic reminders to patients reminding them of regular checkups and clinics, thus leading to improved care as well as reduced instances of medical errors.

In addition, EMR enhances patient care by integrating patient tracking, billing as well as insurance premiums, thus ensuring that claims are facilitated in a timely manner. EMR also eliminates chances of medical errors by embracing digital paper trails, thus doing away with illegible handwriting by clinicians and nurses (Alpert, 2016). The use of EMRs by healthcare organizations enhances a comprehensive view of the patient, which leads to dynamic patient-centered records, which help in tracking a patient's care over a long period. EMR allows multiple health care providers to access patient records despite their location (Kim, Lee, & Kim, 2018). In addition, EMR provides yields improved results management due to the quick transfer of patient data to other departments as well as reduced errors.

Potential Problems With Electronic Medical Records

Some of the potential problems and challenges of EMR include privacy and security concerns, financial issues, interruptions in workflows, and loss of productivity in the implementation of the software. Besides, other problems associated with EMR include malpractice liability concerns and inaccurate information, as well as the need to regularly update computer systems and software (Rotmensch, Halpern, Tlimat, Horng, & Sontag, 2017). Adopting EMR causes negative financial consequences since medical software is expensive. Therefore, implementing EMR can lead to a financial burden on certain healthcare organizations.

Also, the cost of maintaining EMR is high, especially while switching from traditional to electronic records. Besides, some of the medical software lacks interoperability, where systems fail to exchange required information at the appropriate times. Also, computer breakdown is also a major setback for the implementation of EMR within the healthcare facilities. In addition, implementation of EMR may lead to loss of human productivity, where some staff is laid off due to the adoption of the electronic systems. Finding a competent EMR software provider is also another drawback for healthcare organizations. For instance, some software providers do not provide regular updates to their systems as well as do not pay attention to the future of the system, thus making it difficult for organizations to select the best software (Alpert, 2016). Computer illiteracy and lack of appropriate infrastructure also limit the use of and implementation of EMR. For instance, the use of EMR requires the installation of electricity and internet connectivity. Therefore, healthcare organizations that lack appropriate infrastructure may find it challenging to implement EMR. Training employees on the use of EMR is time-consuming and expensive due to the many updates required. Lack of confidentiality for a patient's records is also another potential problem that faces the implementation of medical records (Dubovitskaya et al., 2017). For instance, medical records are transferred from one department into another, and patient information may get to unintended users. Computer viruses and hackers also may pose a risk to the security and safety of a patient's information (Rotmensch et al., 2017). Therefore, employees in healthcare organizations should always ensure that computers are protected from viruses, Trojans, and hackers.

Conclusion

EMR allows the sharing and transfer of patient's medical records from one department into the other, thus allowing the administering of quality health services to individuals. The use of EMR in health care facilities allows health care providers to work easily since they can access a patient's information from digital and computer networks. Some of the benefits of EMR include financial incentives, improved quality of health care, increased patient access, convenience, and efficiency, as well as reduced operational costs and space. Also, EMR allows healthcare organizations to create automatic reminders to patients reminding them of regular checkups and clinics, thus leading to improved care as well as reduced instances of medical errors. Some of the potential problems and challenges of EMR include privacy and security concerns, financial issues, interruptions in workflows, and loss of productivity in the implementation of the software.

References

Alpert, J. S. (2016). The electronic medical record in 2016: Advantages and disadvantages. Digital Medicine, 2(2), 48.

Dubovitskaya, A., Xu, Z., Ryu, S., Schumacher, M., & Wang, F. (2017). Secure and trustable electronic medical records are sharing using blockchain. In AMIA annual symposium proceedings (Vol. 2017, p. 650). American Medical Informatics Association.

Halpern, Y., Horng, S., Choi, Y., & Sontag, D. (2016). Electronic medical record phenotyping using the anchor and learn the framework. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 23(4), 731-740.

Kim, H. S., Lee, S., & Kim, J. H. (2018). Real-world evidence versus randomized controlled trial: clinical research based on electronic medical records. Journal of Korean Medical Science, 33(34).

Rotmensch, M., Halpern, Y., Tlimat, A., Horng, S., & Sontag, D. (2017). Learning a health knowledge graph from electronic medical records. Scientific reports, 7(1), 1-11.