Introduction
The growing popularity of information and communication technology (IT/ICT) has made it possible for medical institutions to virtualize their medical records. There are diverse advantages associated with virtualization, but there are also its pitfalls and challenges. These challenges are continuously addressed at present in order to make the service provided by medical institutions more efficient, have better quality, time and resource saving.
Discussion
Electronic Medical Records (EMR) is the virtualized versions of medical records traditionally printed on papers. This virtualized information are stored in databases, maintained, protected and updated. Virtualized information has diverse issues associated with it. The most prevalent of these issues is the security and privacy issue. Other issues associated with EMR include the needed expertise in maintaining, protecting, and updating of medical records. Healthcare providers may not be accustomed with these addressing such issues since they may lack the expertise to do such functions (Brooks and Grotz, 2010, 73).
The issue in security has always been prevalent upon the virtualization of information. That is; security is one of the most important issues associated with the development and deployment of information technology tools for medical records. Patients who own the medical records are concerned about possible scenarios of information leakage. Note that medical record do juts contain personal medical history. EMR also contains financial information and other personal information such as home, school, and work addresses (Brooks and Grotz, 2010, p. 73).
Fortunately, there are diverse ways of addressing this problem. In my opinion, the real challenge is to convince the patients to trust in the medical institution’s IT or ICT infrastructure. There are many ways of increasing the patient’s confidence to the medical institution’s deployed IT for EMR. One of these is certifications. There are certifying agencies that could check the IT tools and processes used within a medical institution (Brooks and Grotz, 2010, p. 77). The ISO is one of these certifications that could be sought for. Secondly, based from my experience, trusting the medical institution in keeping EMR is associated with the quality of the relationship between patients and healthcare providers. Usually, when patients trust their healthcare providers – such as the nurses and medical doctors who tender kind and considerate service to them – they will have higher confidence in trusting any IT system that the hospital provides. One of the best solutions, therefore, is to teach healthcare providers on how to obtain their patient’s trust and confidence. Obtaining patient’s confidence and trust is also associated with the quality of professional service that they can have in the medical institution. Timely and appropriate responses to patient needs are an excellent way of showing high-quality service to patients.
Conclusion
The problem with patient’s reluctance in trusting the medical institutions deployment of IT or ICT for EMR is associated with their level of confidence with the said institution. This level of confidence could be increased by obtaining certifications from trusted accreditation and certification institutions such as the ISO. But more important than this is the quality of patient – healthcare provider relationship. Patients would associate the reliability and trustworthiness of a medical institution through their assessment of their relationship with the healthcare providers working in it. Hence, healthcare providers must acquire the knowledge base as well as develop the skills for maintaining professional and high-quality relationships with their patients.
Reference
Brooks, R. and Grotz, C. (2010). Implementation Of Electronic Medical Records: How Healthcare Providers Are Managing The Challenges Of Going Digital. Journal of Business & Economics Research, 8(6), pp. 73 – 84.
