Question

The development and the use of the electronic health record (EHR) have made documentation and data management easier. This includes being able to obtain data for tracking and evaluating patient outcomes more efficiently.

In a short summary response to the following questions citing reference from one peer reviewed article.

1. What measures have been developed to ensure the quality of care and preventing adverse health events?
2. Have these measures improved patient outcomes? If so, provide one example. If not, explain why. Provide one example.
3. There are still health care organizations/agencies that have not adopted an EHR. How has this become a burden to those organizations? Provide two examples.

Answer 1

Ans)Measuring the quality of health care by observing its structure, processes, and outcomes. Structure measures assess the accessibility, availability, and quality of resources, such as health insurance, bed capacity of a hospital, and number of nurses with advanced training.

Preventing adverse health events:

- Screen and assess patients to minimise the risk of adverse events.
- Engage patients, families and carers in the care plan.
- Respond to a patient who has a high risk of experiencing an adverse event.
- Respond to a patient who has experienced an adverse event.

Six Examples of Quality Improvement in Healthcare:
Pharmacist-led Medication Therapy Management Reduces Total Cost of Care.
Optimizing Sepsis Care Improves Early Recognition and Outcomes.
Boosting Readiness and Change Competencies Key to Successfully Reducing Clinical Variation.

One reason physicians give for not adopting EHR principles is cost. Not all physicians are good business people, but they recognize when money might have to come out of their pockets for something they're unsure of.

- Barriers were regarding cost, technical concerns, technical support, and resistance to change. Despite federal and local incentives, the initial cost of adopting an EHR is a common existing barrier.

- Clinician burden is primarily linked to EHR usability, which not only puts clinicians in harm but can also impact patient safety and care. HHS received feedback from hundreds of industry stakeholders, which made it clear there were still actionable ways to make health IT more usable for providers.