Question

Discuss the reason(s) care providers have been reluctant to adopt electronic health records.

Answer 1

EHR is electronic record of patient health information, which stores the medical information generated every time patient encounters with health care system. The EHR automates and streamlines the clinical flow of each patient, and generates the holistic health record for determining the care activities and decision making.

Electronic Health Record Benefits:

1. Patient Care was improved

2. EHR can be updated in real time

3. Patient Participation was improved

4. EHR can be delivered to the concern authorities immediately.

5. Improved Care Coordination

6. Diagnostics & Patient Outcomes was improved

7. Practice Efficiencies and Cost Savings was improved

Care providers main reluctant reasons to adopt electronic health records:

Electronic Health Record Challenges:

1. Difficulty in adding older records to an EHR system. Old paper medical records of a patients’ needs to be record in new EHR system and one of the way is to scan those documents and add to system. 22 to 25% doctors are not satisfied from this as this is long time consuming activity.

2. Synchronization of Records: When care is provided at two different location, it is difficult to maintain records at two places.

3. Privacy: Today records are exchanged on internet as other data have. Online security of these data from hacking with entire system.

4. Hardware limitations: Computer access is required to use electronic heath record. This required sufficient number of laptops, desktops or other mobile computers to the employees.

5. Long term preservation and storage of records: Records needs to be store for long time and it needs storage on server and other hardware equipment like hard disks.

6. Inertia: Many large institution resist change as it cost to them and affect their business operations. The institutional stress of implementing new large system must be anticipated by management.

7. Training: To work with new EHR, it requires a simple training to the users who are new to this technology, such as data entry, internet uses and software working.

Solutions for Electronic Health Record implementation:

1. Support team based care: Current technology require data to enter in software, which is carried out by other team members so that doctors do their work more efficiently.

2. Promote care coordination through automatic track referrals, consultants, orders and labs so that doctors can easily follow patient progression.

3. Facilitate digital patient engagement. These increase interoperability between EHR systems and patients mobile technologies.