Question

Care coordination is a sure way to improve patient safety and outcomes.   Explain how an EHR system can help improve or facilitate care coordination from the various members of the a health care delivery team.  

Answer 1

EHR refers to Electronic Health Record.

Electronic Health Records consists of information related to:

• Registration of the patient
• Patient documentation
• Prescriptions
• Lab reports
• Imaging reports
• Clinical decision support
• Inter hospital communications

Major drivers for the adoption of EHR are:

• Health safety: With the help of EHR, the doctors can take better decisions as they have best clinical knowledge database from the EHR.
• Health costs: Physicians can diagnose the disease easily if they have a record of all the existing symptoms. EHR helps in this regard which in turn helps in saving lot of money for disease diagnosis in some cases.
• Changing society: The change in the life style of the people is a major driving force for the adoption of EHR. These days there is a lot of possibility of relocation, which leads to change in doctors. People also got used to mobile services instead of papers. All these made people adopt EHR.

Advantages of Electronic Health Record:

• Easy access to patients
• Convenience
• Effectiveness
• Saving space
• Improved quality of care

All these aspects of the EHR system helped to improve or facilitate care coordination from the various members of a health care delivery team.