EHRs vs Survey Data in Health Care: Quality Measurements - Essay Sample

Introduction

Electronic health records and survey of data, are methods of data extraction in the health care sector. However, Electronic health records (EHR) has brought about new ideas, opportunities, benefits, and also challenges in the health sector for use of clinical data for quality measurements with respect to data quality, data comparability, and availability as compared to survey of data which is regarded to be problematic. In this context, this discussion will review the reasons as to why quality indicators should become stricter, it will also review how data extraction methodologies can be applied in a family practice clinic, and lastly how the lessons in data extraction can be used in hospitals.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Quality indicators are standardized, evidence-based measures of health care which can be used as a tool to guide the process of quality improvement in healthcare by ensuring that the basic requirements of a healthcare are provided. It was decided that the definition of quality indicators become stricter to ensure that patients receive maximum treatment in the best way possible. Quality indicators were also made stricter to compare different data collection methods properly, and also to compare between practices with different EHRS.

Electronic health records have the potential to provide real time feedback to professionals and quality measurements for research (Chan & Weiner, 2010). However, more effort is required to create unambiguous and uniform information, and to unlock written text in a standardized manner, and this makes quality indicators to be made strict.

To compute quality indicators, EHRS for physical therapy which already existed, expanded its functions to administrate reporting on clinical reasoning in order to extract the data process, and outcome of data. In the process of making EHRS available, legislative requirements were compiled to ensure privacy and anonymity of the patients. In a case where a family practice clinic is involved, electronic health records as a method of data extraction is suitable because it guarantees total privacy of the patients, as it does not disclose the illness or type of treatment that a patient is going through.

In a family practice clinic, screening and diagnosis process is required to be accurate in order to administer the right treatment to the right patient. This helps to avoid treating other patients for the wrong disease. Therefore, electronic health records as a method of data extraction is applicable in a family practice clinic because it ensures completeness and correctness of administering the medical process, leading to the physical therapists administering proper treatment.

Electronic health records ensures that information is only shared and agreed with the patient and therapists, resulting to total privacy on the medical information shared. This type of methodology is advised in a family practice clinic because it ensures that no other person can access confidential medical information if he or she is not in electronic health records data. In a family practice clinic, the most important thing is to always be in communication with the patients about their health and how they are progressing. The communication process with the electronic health records has therefore, been made easier because communications in electronic health records are normally completed during or right after the consult with the patient making it easier to answer questions on the communication process with the patient.

Electronic health records can serve as a technological checklist for clinical reasoning in hospitals. It might help in preventing mistakes in the clinical process, and also increase safety. Although this might not improve the outcomes of the clinical conditions, but at least it can help mistakes to be easily retrieved therefore, increasing accountability, and transparency in a hospital set up. Electronic health records as a method of data extraction can be used in hospitals to improve the collection of quality measures because it serves as a tool to facilitate completeness of administering the medical process, and it is also more accurate as compared to survey as a method of data extraction. Such a method of data extraction is beneficial to hospitals because it provides accurate and fast information, therefore, speeding up the treatment process.

Conclusion

In conclusion, electronic health record as a method of data extraction is most beneficial as compared to survey of data which is costly in terms of money, and it also takes up a lot of time. Therefore, a standardized electronic health record can be used for continuous measurement of the quality of care, and for providing real time feedback to all stakeholders.

References

Chan & Weiner, J. P. (2010). Electronic health records and the reliability and validity of quality measures: a review of the literature. Medical Care Research and Review, 67(5), 503-527. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1077558709359007