SWOT Analysis for Electronic Medical Record in Texas District Hospital
Electrical Medical Record is a digital version of a record that contains a full history of a patient from one practice. It is used for it makes it easier to track patient’s data over time. Peer review of health to health service was conducted to enable perform a SWOT analysis about possible integration of Electrical Medical Records and results are as presented.
Strengths
It’s a proven method. The methodology has been approved to be functional in different health institutions which build trust on clients for ease of access to their records. This saves them time. Accurate and reliable data, EMR will reduce chances of missing or incomplete records and hence it will be more functional and acceptable in the market. It can be used in predicting future trends. The Information that has been stored electronically will be easily used to establish the past events and help to predict future trends on the same.
Ensures the documentation is of high quality and remains original. Healthcare sector strive to reduce the reliance on handwritten records and implement a better system to ensure efficient documentation. Traditionally, doctors’ handwriting is often unclear and therefore might lead to errors. Typed information is less likely to create misunderstanding which ensures a more accurate service delivery and making it easier to find the information needed.
Will make reporting easily to understand and provide an unbiased evaluation. As long as the work is handled by skilled professionals both in healthcare and IT, it will be more accurate.
Weaknesses
Errors may arise during exchange of information from one department to another. Data exchange between providers who use it in different IT systems is vulnerable to manipulation by those handling it. This might impair the judgment of doctors which will as a result give an untrue history of the patient.
Lead to medical error. Sometimes the physicians might rely predominantly on EMR on their management plan. The computer records should not take place of physician’s judgment. It should solely be used to collect and disseminate the information or else there will be an increase in mortality of the patients due to prior judgment.
Evaluation does not include interconnections of patient data from various modules. The process will depend entirely on data collected on the hospital and from patient experience, lack of interconnections between different hospitals renders the project weak on past data reliability. Will be limited in scope based on financial considerations- Financial capability of the hospital will still remain as a limiting factor since all the resources cannot be channeled to a single project and hence activities have to be limited to the financial capability.
Potentially high cost, the project will involve a complete shift to electronic records that mean it will require a lot of finances to invest on the electrical machines and also to train personnel who will handle the job.
Will take a long period- The transfer of all documents that were previously stored in hard copy to digital copies will evidently take time. Lack of enough professionals- Most health professionals do not have IT know how and if they do it is limited and hence they will need to receive training afresh on storage and retrieval of patient records.
Variation in software packages- EMR involves use of multiple soft wares provided by a different vendor. This may bring a complication since every vendor has its own expertise. Lack of a single software package might pose a problem since some parts might not be in full operation.
Opportunities
Improved reporting capabilities- EMR provide a better mechanism for analyzing and reviewing patient outcome. This will make it easier to organize and to follow up patients who require continuous checkup providing a better customer service. Fulfill patient satisfaction. Using technologies, information management system in health care facilities will be transformed and focus more on retaining the health records of a patient rather than focusing on how it is documented.
Will give support in decision making. The electronic method of keeping records requires consistency in both the use of standards and high quality data to support the information that is to be shared in the database. This will keep track on the procedures and prescriptions that were used for future reference in similar cases.
Threats
Patient perception on the privacy issue- The patient might feel that the privacy about their treatment records is not guaranteed. IT system is vulnerable to hackers who will obtain the data either for their personal or malicious use. Probability of system failure- This is a common problem with electronics. In the case of a system failure, it might limit the usefulness of the records, and if the workers happen to be overworked, they might demand an increase in overtime pay.
Resistance of implementation among users- Many users are not used to IT in their work place and prefer to cling into the old manual way of recording. Some might think that the project is too expensive and maybe think of presence of a hidden agenda. Might jeopardize patient-provider relationship- This is because the provider will have to rely more on the previous records than the current condition. Also, the provider might mistakenly use history to cloud the judgment about the current condition.
The data presented in the above analysis can be presented on a graph as shown below:
References
Carter, J. (2011). Electronic Medical Records: A Guide for Clinicians and Administrators. New York: ACP Press.
Fong, B. (2011). Telemedicine Technologies: Information Technologies in Medicine and Telehealth. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Hartley, C. (2009). EHR Implementation: A Step-By-Step Guide for the Medical Practice. New York: Amer Medical Assn.
Smith, S. (2012). Principles of Electronic Prescribing. New York: Springer.
