Essay Sample on Digital Health Records: EMRs & EHRs - Improving Patient Care

Introduction

Electronic media record (EMR) is a single digital version of a patient's chart. EMR contains treatment, diagnosis and patient's medical history by a particular clinic, surgeon, dental specialist, or nurse practitioner. As such, EMR can be used to improve patient health through timely reminders for patient preventative and screenings and also better tracking of data over time. Though the term EMR and electronic health record (EHR) are sometimes used interchangeably, there is a distinction in that EMR is a narrower view of the medical history of a patient. At the same time (EHR) is a more comprehensive report that usually contains an overall description of patient health. In other words, EMRs are designed in such a way that they help patients to move with their medical information to pharmacies, emergency rooms, imaging facilities, labs and specialists as well as across state lines (Terry et al., 2018). Examples of EMRs include; Therapy Notes, Care360, Practice Fusion and EpicCare, among others.

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How Do Electronic Media Record System Work

EMR Software usually contains certain features that are put in place to promote the connection between a patient and a health practitioner. The EMR software usually works through combining several systems within a doctor's office or hospital and allows for instant access to virtually any aspect of a patient medical record. EMR often allows the medical practitioners to quickly enter the patient's information that they update with each encounter. For an EMR to operate, it must be hosted with a data center. For the patients to be able to access this information, they must install the EMR software in their electronic devices such as a computer, tablet, and mobile phones, among other gadgets with a web browser (Terry et al., 2018).

Challenges in Using an Electronic Media Record

Though the use of EMRs has been identified with numerous benefits in health care, it is also faced with specific problems. One of the difficulties is difficulties in finding a competent EMR Software provider. There is very many EMRs software today. As such, sometimes, medical organizations are faced with challenges in finding the most effective software provider that will give the best result. The primary concern has been that some of the EMR software providers lack regular updates of their software on a daily bases. They might also require to pay attention to the future of the software. When this happens, their software protocols may fail to be in line with an organization's best practices. As such, the challenge has been to find a software provider that embraces frequent updates and the one with a history of providing quality services. The other problem is the cost of running the system. Though EMRs improve the operation of health provision, the cost of setting and acquiring the EMR system can become a substantial setback when switching from the manual record-keeping to electronic record keeping. However, in the recent past, some software provider has been trying to help in facing this challenge by allowing a flexible payment plan that can enable people to shift to digital with lest cost constraint. Lack of infrastructure is also another challenge of using EMRs. Some health practitioners fail to consider EMRs as an option due to some problems such as electricity, installation of computers, and internet connectivity. In some places, the only EMRs system that can work are those that require a single periodic internet connection for data backup, can work on any device and can run offline. However, since there is no such EMRs software, the people who lack these infrastructures, especially those living in remote areas, are faced with the challenge of adopting EMRs system. Computer illiteracy is also another factor that challenges the use of EMRs. Some health practitioners are reluctant to invest in EMRs because of a lack of the knowledge to operate computers among their administrators who had been used to only traditional record-keeping (Fisch, Chung, & Accordino, 2016). However, some EMRs software providers have created user-friendly systems, and this makes it easy for a user to operate them efficiently after a concise training.

The Electronic Medical Record and Medical Error

A medical error is a preventable detrimental effect of care. They are practices that end up harming a patient due to a lack of information or use of the wrong data. It might include rough treatment or diagnosis of an infection, behaviour, syndrome, or injury. According to (Fisch et al., 2016), deaths due to medical errors have become a significant challenge in healthcare. A study that was conducted by Caraballo et al. (2017) shows that, before the introduction of EMR, 98,000 patients were dying every year in the United States due to medical error. However, with the introduction of EMR, this has reduced by 60 - 70%. This shows that EMR can be a useful tool in lowering healthcare error.

Various advantages have been connected with the use of EMR, reducing medical errors. One area where EMR reduces medical error is through reducing potential medication conflict. Conditional use of EMR does not only help in keeping a patient record but also a patient's allergies or medications. As such, it helps a health practitioner to check for potential conflict before prescribing a new drug. For example, it is easier for a doctor to realize that a patient is allergic to a particular medicine or he/she is under another prescription and hence makes a sound decision on the most effective order (Terry et al., 2018). The other thing is that it can also help in reducing risk in an emergency room. EMR enables the information gathered by primary care to be available in the emergency department about patients threatening allergy and hence practitioners in the emergency room will be able to adjust treatment accordingly even when a patient is unconscious. Besides, EMR can allow providers to systematically and quickly identify and correct operational problems. This will help to reduce medication errors that could result from such issues in the future (Caraballo et al., 2017). However, in a traditional record system, identifying operational problems can be hard, and they may take years to change and hence more likely to cause medical errors in the future.

The Electronic Medical Record and Research

Various studies have been conducted on matters to do with the use of EMR, its operations and effectiveness in promoting healthcare in the United States. A study that was conducted by Jindal and Raziuddin (2018), aimed at finding the efficacy of EMRs in reducing medical errors. This study was conducted through medical practitioners who use EMR in Arizona, USA. The findings of this research were that a medical professional who uses EMR in their practices reduces medical errors such as wrong medication, improper dosage delivery and wrong-site surgery by 50-60%. Another study that was conducted by Hillestad et al. (2017) aimed at examining the potential financial and health benefits that can be attained through the implementation of EMR. It compared the use of IT in healthcare and other industries. The adoption estimated the potential cost and saving of a comprehensive EMR system, safety benefits and models of vital health. The study concluded that the adoption of EMR and networking could save more than $ 81 billion annually through improving safety and healthcare efficiency. It also found that the use of EMR in managing chronic diseases could double these savings while increasing not only health but also other social benefits. However, related healthcare system changes need to be put into consideration for this to be achieved.

Patient's and Electronic Medical Record

While EMR helps the health practitioners in effective record keeping and accessing patient treatment history, they also have benefits on the side of the patients. One of the most fundamental benefits so that they help the patient to have better data tracking over time. Unlike the paper records, data kept in digital form is easily maintained, and hence it can be followed anytime. The other thing is that EMRs also benefit the patients in that they provide a timely reminder for the patient's preventatives checkups and screenings (Fisch et al., 2016). Generally, they improve the patient's care.

References

Caraballo, P. J., Bielinski, S. J., St. Sauver, J. L., & Weinshilboum, R. M. (2017). Electronic medical recordintegrated pharmacogenomics and related clinical decision support concepts. Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics, 102(2), 254-264.

Fisch, M. J., Chung, A. E., & Accordino, M. K. (2016). Using technology to improve cancer care: social media, wearables, and electronic health records. American Society of Clinical Oncology Educational Book, 36, 200-208.

Hillestad, R., Bigelow, J., Bower, A., Girosi, F., Meili, R., Scoville, R., & Taylor, R. (2017). Can electronic medical record systems transform health care? Potential health benefits, savings, and costs. Health Affairs, 24(5), 1103-1117. doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.24.5.1103

Jindal, S. K., & Raziuddin, F. (2018). Electronic medical record use and perceived medical error reduction. International Journal of Quality and Service Sciences, 10(1), 84-95. doi.org/10.1108/IJQSS-12-2016-0081

Terry, A. L., Ryan, B. L., McKay, S., Oates, M., Strong, J., McRobert, K., & Thind, A. (2018). Towards optimal electronic medical record use: perspectives of advanced users. Family practice, 35(5), 607-611.