Interestingly, the findings from the review of literature shed light to the challenges nurses encounter with the implementation of electronic health records and identify areas for improvement that could be made in an effort to achieve the goals of the HITECH act. Based on the review of literature, overall, the electronic health record is seen as a positive aspect to assisting nurses in providing positive outcomes for patients. However, challenges still exist with the daily utilization of the EHR, with communication among healthcare providers and interdisciplinary teams. These challenges present nurses with great difficulty as they attempt to provide care to their patients. Because some nurses continue to struggle with utilizing the electronic …show more content…
The HITECH Act was developed so encourage the dissemination of health information technology, which was believed to facilitate improved patient and decrease the cost of healthcare for patients. Yet, even though hospitals are receiving incentives and are adhering to requirements placed on them, nursing staff are struggling due to interruption in workflow and loss in productivity due to time spent learning to use an electronic health record. Nurses are also challenged with technical issues that arise, while providing patient care, which limits their access to patient information. Nevertheless, advantages due to exist to utilizing electronic health record, which include less medical errors, and an improvement in the overall health of populations. Additionally, there is a reduced cost of healthcare for patients as less repetition in treatments and labs are done for patients. Nurse educators have a key role in educating nursing staff on requirements of electronic health records and assisting in a smooth transition. A modification to the HITECH Act to address documentation, may assist in better workflow for nurses. Modification could ensure that only pertinent information requires documentation and then healthcare facilities compliant with the HITECH Act could modify their policies to reflect the
The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act laid out the groundwork for a program designed to equip hospitals and medical practices around the country with electronic health record systems by providing financial incentives (p. 245). However, in some markets such as long-term care facilities the transition to electronic system has been slow. Professional nurses whose careers are in long-term care in our nation will play major role in getting electronic health systems into these settings. It will take nurse advocating for these systems and continuation of research showing evidence that supports widespread adaptation of these systems, but nurse united under one cause, best practice can make anything happen.
Throughout the past decades, many acts have been passed in support of health information technology and the adaptation of such technology. Two of those acts, the HIPAA (health insurance portability and accountability) Act and the HITECH (Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health) Act, focus on protecting patient health information and utilizing health information technology. Although these acts bring about many positive changes within the healthcare industry, there are some downsides regarding the implementation of these acts, as there are with many acts that are passed. Both of these acts provide security to patient health information, however, the HITECH Act contributes more to the utilization of the electronic health
Electronic health records are essential in allowing physicians to monitor their patients’ health, notice trends, and potentially prevent hospital readmissions, quickly diagnose diseases, and reduce medical errors. This is the first in a series of blog posts where we ask the question “What is Meaningful Use of an EHR?” In this post, we interview a physician at a family practice to learn more about how he is meaningfully using his EHR to coordinate patient care, prevent a hospital readmission and ultimately improve patient health. On the day we spoke, Dr. Frank Maselli of Riverdale Family Practice in the Bronx had just finished seeing 30 patients.
The resources above expanded on knowledge concerning the definition, evolution, proposed outcomes, research and the technology of meaningful use of the electronic health record. Nursing administrators, staff nurses, and nursing informaticists all perform an essential role in achieving meaningful use of the electronic medical record to improve patient care. Certain authors referenced other authors proving that the health information technology field is indeed a tightknit community. The resources were well written from highly credentialed authors and were, for the most part, easy to comprehend. All of these articles were written for the nursing professional with the exception of resource
In her assessment of the American Reinvestment & Recovery Act (ARRA), Murphy (2009) discusses how its enactment provided unprecedented funding for the advancement of health information technology (HIT) which served to promote health care reform. Electronic health records (EHRs) by extension received a boost via incentivization for appropriate use in hospitals and ambulatory settings (Murphy, 2009). The benefits of EHRs include the ability to improve the delivery and quality of nursing care, the ability to make more timely and efficient nursing care decisions for nursing, the ability to avoid errors that might harm patients and the ability to promote health and wellness for the patients (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2015). An appropriate use of EHR
Electronic Health Records and Patient Confidentiality Technology has become an essential part of our everyday life therefore, it makes sense that doctors and hospitals get rid of the old fashioned paper charting and use technology to access patient records. Electronic health records (EHR) provide quick access to information, as doctors no longer have to wait for other providers to fax previous records to them. The accessibility of Electronic Health Records assist medical providers to make quick medical care decisions, by accessing previous care provided to patients including treatment and diagnosis. Quick access to information through EHR enables health care providers to treat patients faster as there is no need for records to be mailed or
Other than HIPAA, Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act is a major federal policy initiative that affects the healthcare information technology (HIT) in the past years. However, its policy is used to protect the EHR system from a security breach that can cause multi-million dollar fines to the company (Campus Safety Magazine, 2010). In 2009, President Obama signed HITECH Act as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to support the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) with authority, so it can establish programs that will improve healthcare quality, safety, and efficiency using HIT (Hebda & Czar, 2013). Certainly, HITECH is one of the significant health care reforms that have a major
Most people don’t think to worry or wonder where all of their information goes when they visit the doctor’s office, or how the doctor knew things about them from several years ago. They don’t ask the question especially when they go to a new doctor who knows the same thing about them that they’ve never talked about. Electronic Health Records, also known as EHR’s, are becoming some of the most important parts of medical offices around the country and are advancing more and more each day. Ever since the 80’s, EHR’s were being designed and formed, but not until 2009, when the HITECH Act came out, did they start becoming of key importance to the health care market. As they keep growing more and more each day, EHR’s are becoming vital to patient health.
Using IT to reduce the number of descriptions are taking place during the same time implementation and other task occurring in the nursing unit. Challenges Experienced during an Informatics
My experience with electronic medical record (EMR) is great. As a nurse it helps me access relevant patient information with a click of a button and guarded me from making medical errors. According Mason, Leavitt and Chaffee (2014), electronic medical record (EMR) has shown to improve patient safety, enhance quality, reduce workloads, and improve care coordination. Moreover, it captures information from laboratory, pharmacy, radiology, and equipment, such as EKG, smart pumps and etc.
The electronic health record is a very useful tool in the documentation of care for a patients as these uses the advancement in technology, thereby saving time and creating more time to focus on the patient care. It is important for nurses to be acquainted with the use of electronic health records to be able to derive the optimum use of the technology. The nurse can only prove his or her professionalism in the documentation of his care to a patient. Although due to the cumbersome nature of documentation many nurses dread it while also it’s also important to note that nurse should not write illegibly making it difficult for others to read, all written documents should be clear enough to be read by any one, all patients present conditions should be documented and any change in a patient or family status should be noted.
Health care is growing increasingly complex, and most clinical research focuses on new approaches to diagnosis and treatment (Bates and Gawande, 2003). An electronic health record (EHR) is a digital version of a patient’s paper chart. EHRs are real-time, patient-centeredrecords that make information available instantly and securely to authorized users. While an EHR does contain the medical and treatment histories of patients, an EHR system is built to go beyond standard clinical data collected in a provider’s office and can be inclusive of a broader view of a patient’s care. The electronic health record (EHR) is a documentation tool that yields data useful in enhancing patient safety, evaluating care quality, maximizing efficiency, and determining
Technology has been an ever changing factor in the health care field. Some of the pros associated with technology is that it has enabled providers to care for patients with increased efficiency. The driver behind this innovation is the need for quicker turnaround times and instant updates. No longer does it take weeks to get medical records because technology allows for almost immediate delivery via electronic data transmission. Patients can now collaboratively work with their health care provider to monitor health related conditions via web based devices.
An E-Medical Health Record (EMHR) is an electronic version of a patient’s medical history, that is maintained by the provider over time, and may include all of the key administrative clinical data relevant to that persons care under a particular provider, including demographics, progress notes, problems, medications, vital signs, past medical history, immunizations, laboratory data and radiology reports . The EMHR automates access to information and has the potential to streamline the clinician's workflow. The EMHR also has the ability to support other care-related activities directly or indirectly through various interfaces, including evidence-based decision support, quality management, and outcomes reporting. 1.3 Purpose An E-Medical
Implementation of an electronic medical record system in hospital can result in a positive impact and beneficial in developed a better health care organization. Last but not least, the healthcare industry todays needs to realize that IT as a fundamental asset in providing efficient health related information services and improving the quality of medical services and patient