Digital Health Records Assignment Sample

Electronic Health Record Adoption in US Hospitals

Introduction to Digital Health Records

Electronic health record is a growing concept in the healthcares systems that focus to collect all the medical health records of individual patient for improving the health quality. Electronic health records are real time, patient centered that provides personal information for patients to authorized users. The information is useful and can be used for effective care and patient wellbeing. Electronic medical records are justify confidentiality and autonomy in a secured and digitalized manner (Royal children's hospital Melbourne, n.d). At the same time, healthcare departments can face various legal and ethical challenges during practical implementation of digital health record systems. Medical staff should share the knowledge of the digital health record policies to the patients by taking a written consent and adopt the advanced technology for patient wellbeing (Royal children's hospital Melbourne, n.d ). The essay will reflect the importance of digital health record policy for patient wellbeing and the barriers in adoption by target users.

Digital Medical Record and Confidentiality

In modern healthcare systems, the patient information has been digitalized which acts as a communication tool in the clinical decision making, evaluation, efficacy, quality of care, and service co-ordination. The electronic records ensure the legal policies including non-disclosure policy, accreditation, and regulatory processes. In the earlier times, patient medical records were drafted on a paper and stored in a repository used for administrative and financial reasons while, there were no restrictions on access and no alerts were generated upon any unauthorized access (Milstein et al., 2017). The patients were unable to review their medical records which might harm their autonomy bio-ethics eventually. With modern technological advancements, patients medical history got digitalized with more security and alert systems and were accompanied with three major legal attributes and include security, confidentiality, availability, and data breaching ( Tom & Tod,2014). The effective application of electronic medical records can be achieved by satisfying major factors like consistency in security policies, and highly available. Electronic healthcare involves multidisciplinary teams and include telecommunication, computer science and required transfer of record to different geographical regions which can create risk to secured data (Milstein et al., 2017). Nurses face various challenges in explaining the procedure of digital medical records and they find it time consuming and can affect their everyday work

In modern times, healthcare system is focusing on revolutionary changes by bringing the more use of information technology however, implementing the electronic health records can turn into a challenging process. The effective implementation process requires the integrity, security, and accountability of patient health records ( Tom & Tod,2014). The use of medical records have been appreciated by the patients and family members as well and help caregivers to work effectively within a framework. It has a huge impact on patient safety and also help to reduce the healthcare services cost. However, with the increasing sharing of medical records on online portals, the security and confidentiality of patient information can get hampered which can create trouble for nurses which effect their work ( Tom & Tod,2014). Privacy can be breached intentionally or unintentionally by the third party which needs to be addressed as it can affect the confidential and autonomy ethics of the patient. Moreover, can create gap in the therauptic relationship leading to loss of trust which is an essential component shaping the effective care and support (Milstein et al., 2017). While it is evident that all principles and guidelines related to patient safety should be secured for the smooth implementation of electronic medical records so as to improve the overall improve the quality of healthcare systems

Implementation of Electronic Medical Records

The use of electronic medical records(EMR) was initiated in the hospital settings due to its unexceptional health benefits for improved care and safety. While various barriers are associated with use of electronic medial record systems and include technical drawbacks, data entry and hardware issues, issues interface problems, and performance feedback (Lambooij et al.,2017). These factors will not comply the needs of the user and more user-friendly factors should be incorporated in the electronic medical device. EMR has been widely accepted by the healthcare facilities and several factors influencing the results are valuable (Lambooij et al.,2016). Nurses find the effective use of EMR in data recording aiding to their work space management. However, EMR require timely entry of patient data in the device which can create imbalance in their work specially in emergency state where treating patient is important rather than recording the data in the digital way (Lambooij et al.,2016). Nurses and patients are strongly attached and therefore can effectively improve care procedures using EMR moreover, use of EMR also supports the nurses by improving work and focus on work alignment dimensions as well. Doctors and nurses shows different needs while using electronic medical record and the hospital organization must use the information to design a standard platform to fit for use of all types of user.

Electronic medical records secure patient information and can exchange it among healthcare professionals, assist them in critical decision making eventually improving patient safety. However, the implication of EMP for patient improvement requires multidisciplinary team work for its effective application (Milstein et al., 2017). This can cause unnecessary loss to the organization in the long run. In the healthcare systems it becomes difficult to identify the objective value added and the adoption by users can create evident obstacles for potential benefits (Milstein et al., 2017). In modern scenario, hospital organizations can use escalation prevention potential (EPP) which allows the organization to navigate a process which turns in loss of money and waste of valuable time on projects with no regulatory background (Lambooij et al.,2016). The senior and head of departments should understand the effective use of EMR for its effective application which improves organization benefits. Studies have shown that there is a positive connection between the EPP and value added of electronic medical records and was explained in terms of formal governance mechanism of the system. It means the innovative culture will accept easily the innovation implement also, the hospital settings have a set of medical tools that can affect that favors to utilize the EMRs effectively.

Adoption of Electronic Medical Records

Electronic medical records have been widely owing to the effective care and secured treatment processes and may include the digital information like medical images, laboratory tests, drugs administered, personal information of patient and others. The recorded data will help the caregivers to easily identify the disease and can work to improve patient quality in future as the paper information does not provide the specific medical records (Gesulga et al.,2017). Despite of these technological advancement for patient care, doctors and nurses have moved slowly in EMP adoption and lack of readiness by doctors in using EMR is one of major issue that minimized the use as the doctors are the frontline users of EMR. Their preference for using EMR will influence junior medical staff also including nurses and paramedics (Gesulga et al.,2017). The users do not find time to make themselves aware about the innovate product and impart the same training among other users even tough other users in the hospital have find it easy to use. This discrete choice or preference within the same organization can create barrier in the effective implementation of EMR for patient wellbeing (Lambooij et al.,2016). Health authorities can utilize this information can be utilize to acknowledge the choices of all the target users.

The appropriate use of logistics and regular upgradation of training among target users can increase the use of electronic medical records. Commitment from the staff members can provision of expertise from information technology staff can lead to the effective use of EMR in healthcare settings (Gyamfi et al.,2017). Although, some physicians include the cost of upgrade, negotiating, and service cost and this will act contrary to the benefits by the use of electronic medical records. The overall increased cost will add to the overall cost of the healthcare services however, the appropriate use of EMR can balance the cost of and can benefit the patient in long term (Boonstra &Broekhuis,2015). Moreover, the application of EMR in emergency state can affect the patient-nurse relationship and can create difficulty in interaction problems as hunting for menus during communication can disrupt the clinical encounter (Boonstra &Broekhuis,2015). The proper adoption of electronic medical records is still low owing to resistance from doctors and nurses as well and more funding from organization will fill the adoption gap for EMR for patient benefit and improved safety.

Conclusion on Digital Health Records

Electronic medical records have been widely owing to the effective care and secured treatment processes. EMR are patient centered which provide personal information for patients to authorized users. The information is useful and can be used for effective care and patient wellbeing. Despite of technological advancement for patient care, physicians have moved slowly for adoption of EMR owing to lack of readiness by doctors in using EMR. The smooth implementation of EMR requires system support and various environmental and organizational attributes. In addition difficulty in using modern technology by target users and lack of IT support results in barrier of EMR adoption. For effective application of EMR in the hospital settings, target users must be able to use the technology effectively which in turn will improve the quality of care and patient safety. Hospital organization must introduce hands on training the staff so that such barriers will not hamper the technology success. More communication and support from IT departments will benefit the implementation process, nurses will respond to an innovative organization culture.

References for Digital Health Records

Boonstra A, &Broekhuis M. (2015). Barriers to the acceptance of electronic medical records by physicians from systematic review to taxonomy and interventions. BMC Health Services Research., 10, 231-236.

Gesulga, J.M., Berjame, A., Moquiala, K.S., Galido, A. (2017). Barriers to electronic health record system implementation and information systems resources: A structured review. Procedia Computer Science, 125, 544-551.

Gyamfi, A., Mensah, K.A., Oduro, G., Mock, C.N. (2017). Barriers and facilitators to electronic medical records usage in the emergency centre at komfo anokye teaching Hospital, kumasi-Ghana. African Journal of Emergency Medicine, 7(4), 177-182.

Lambooij, M., & Koster, F. (2016). How organizational, R., , Suarez, O., Fuentes, M., Sanchez-Gonzalez. M.A.(2019). Electronic health record implementation: a review of resources and tools. 11(9), 1-14.

Lambooij, M., Drewes, H., & Koster, F. (2017). Use of electronic medical records and quality of patient data: Different reaction patterns of doctors and nurses to the hospital escalation prevention potential affects the success of the implementation of innovations: electronic medical records in hospitals. Implementation Science: IS, 11(1), 7

Miller, R.H., Sim,I., Physicians’ use of electronic medical records: barriers and solutions Health Aff, 23 (2) (2004), pp. 116-126

Milstein, J., Holmgren, A.J., Kralovec, P., Worzala, C., Searcy, T., Patel, V. (2017). Electronic health record adoption in US hospitals: the emergence of a digital “advanced use” divide. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 24( 6), 1142–1148,

Royal children's hospital Melbourne. (n.d). Personal information confidentiality. Obtained from https://www.rch.org.au/policy/public/Personal_information_-_confidentiality/

Struik, M., Koster, F., Schuit, A., Nugteren, R., Veldwijk, J., & Lambooij, M. (2014). The preferences of users of electronic medical records in hospitals: Quantifying the relative importance of barriers and facilitators of innovation. ImplementationScience:IS, 9,69

Tom, S., Tod, G.(2014). Electronic Health Records (EHR). American Journal of Health Sciences, 3(3),201-210.

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