Introduction
Electronic health records are the computerize version of the paper health records which help physicians, pharmacies and hospitals to get access to information that contributes to patient safety, quality of care with timely manner. Despite of many benefits of electronic health records there are some challenges that hinder to start e-records on a wide scale (Silow-Carroll, 2012). There are many real-time examples of successful electronic health records though here we are discussing one of them. In May when the shocking Joplin tornado hit, D. Ringle (chief nursing officer of St. J’s M. Hospital in Joplin, MO) found her hospital destroyed fortunately all patient health records were safe because they have stored electronically. The hospital was capable to look every one rapidly and they were able to send the information to other medical facilities within two hours after the tornado hit due to e-health records (Lurie & Mostashari, 2011).
There are several benefits and challenges of electronic health records that impact upon both patients and health care providers. This section will explain the benefits and challenges of e-health records.
Health safety
An E-health record is a very powerful solution for many healthcare related problems such as unreadable handwritten prescription, drug to drug interactions and wrong dosage plan (Silow-Carroll, 2012). It increases the health safety of the patient by limiting the errors in medical prescription. If the patient needs care from the different doctors in different country or state the doctors rely on an individual patient’s memory to know about their illness and treatment history which is not the best method to collect this information (Silow-Carroll).
An effective e-health records system would let care providers to have updated, correct, and complete patient information as a result the doctors can take better decision (Sullivan, 2010).
Fast Service
If the hospital has electronic health records, the doctors or nurses can get any information about any patient at any time with the single mouse click. This is a great technique to get information easily because e-records are accessible on the internet but it has some consequences as compare to manual health records such as privacy and security of patient data (Sullivan, 2010).
Less Storage Space
Electronic health records have to store on computers electronically; they do not need too much physical space to store. However, the heaps of space required to store paper records (Silow-Carroll, 2012).
Initial high cost and Time consuming design
As research shows that e-health records are easily available when required. However, to keep up these records are very time-consuming and expensive initially. Moreover, the hospitals looked remarkable challenges in training of all hospital staff in how to use the e-health records. They required the increase in their IT staff to train doctors and other staff members. Consequently, the cost increases (Silow-Carroll, 2012) but it still cost-effective and fast. The EHR implementations cut the cost of treatment because with manual records sometimes doctors have found it is easier to order a new test instead of trying to find outcome of the previous test but they can easily find the results of earlier test with e-health records (Sullivan, 2010).
Resistance to change/privacy
Moreover, the social and privacy issues are very important and both act as the dominant restraining factors in the use of e-health records at wide scale because people always resist and have fear to follow new technology. In addition, the information of the patient needs to store according to privacy policy because the e-records contain very sensitive data about the health of the patient (Sullivan, 2010).
For successful implementation of this technology, some of the critical issues are still need to rectify. If electronic healthcare systems will overcome all these issues it can improve health care services to very high extent.
References
Lurie, N., & Mostashari, F. (2011, July 22). Electronic Health Records Prove to be Invaluable after Crisis [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.healthit.gov/buzz-blog/ehr-case-studies/electronic-health-records-prove-invaluable-crisis/
Silow-Carroll, S., Edwards, J., & Rodin, D. (2012). Using electronic health records to improve quality and efficiency: the experiences of leading hospitals. The Commonwealth Fund, 17. Retrieved from http://www.commonwealthfund.org/~/media/Files/Publications/
Issue%20Brief/2012/Jul/1608_SilowCarroll_using_EHRs_improve_quality.pdf
Sullivan, M. (2010). The Benefits of Electronic Health Records and Interoperable Systems. Journal of Health Care Compliance, 12(3). Retrieved from http://www.sinaiko.com/userfiles/file/JHCC_03-10_Sullivan.pdf
