Question

The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act of 2009 (HITECH Act), Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), and Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act (HCERA) are all examples of significant policy shifts that have altered the healthcare landscape. The changes associated with these policy shifts have forced patients, providers, and payors to adapt and, in the case of providers and payors, invest substantial resources. One of the desired outcomes of the changes in healthcare policy is a national database for healthcare information, in which some form of electronic health record (EHR) and health information exchange (HIE) is essential.

please answers

Students will develop both a pro and con argument for a national EHR based upon regional HIE from the patient, provider, and payor perspectives. The student will submit a written explanation of their argument consisting of no more than two (2) pages content for each perspective (i.e. two page maximum patient pro argument, two page maximum patient con argument…

Answer 1

Advantages of electronic health records

It can be considered under three headings

1)Clinical outcomes

Improved quality of care:

Quality of care is defined as doing the right thing in the right time in the right way to the right person with best possible results. Quality of care has several dimensions. Electronic health records help this improve three dimensions-patient safety, efficiency and effectiveness.

Patient safety can be improved by adhering to evidence based practices and guidelines.Most often this is not possible because of absence of awareness in the clinicians and less time during patient visits. This can be taken care of by putting reminders in electronic health records data.It has been seen that the adherence to immunisation schedules are increased with the installation of electronic health records.Also prophylactic care for patients with cardiac diseases, deep vein thrombosis etc can be better delivered.

Efficiency can be improved by decreased wastage of resources including supplies, equipment, ideas and energy. One such wastage occurs due to ordering of redundant tests.This can be avoided by the computerized reminders of previous test results. This will help in reducing the cost incurred for repeated testing.Another way by which efficiency is increased is by decreasing medication errors.It is seen that appropriate medication orders including dosages and frequency can be effectively done with electronic records, and pharmacy personnel need not spend resources to find out the correct dose.Also this improves the patient care by providing correct doses and frequency of drugs to be taken

2)Organizational outcomes

Include increased revenue, averted cost,improved job satisfaction to clinicians, improved legal and regulatory compliance, improved ability to conduct research

.Increased revenue occurs due to decreased billing errors, increased cash flow.Reminder to patients and providers about routine health visits also help to improve revenue.Averted cost arise from decreased cost relating to supplies needed to maintain paper files,reduced chart pulls,decreased transcription cost, decreased number of staffs needed for patient management.

Improved legal and regulatory compliance occurs due to security of data and patient confidentiality through controlled and auditable provider access.Malpractice claims on clinicians can be reduced

3)Societal outcomes

Societal benefits occurs by the increased ability to conduct research with the readily available data.This can be utilised to draw conclusions which help clinicians to practice evidence based medicine, which benefits the patients. It will also help to identify disease outbreaks early and to identify other potential biological threats

Disadvantages of electronic health records

1)Financial issues

Implementation and installation of the hardware and software, maintanence , converting paper files to electronic records,end user training,payment for information system staffs and contractors are causes for financial issues.

2)Security issues

Patient security may be breached at times,though there are legislations available to keep the records as private.

3)Disruption of workflow to medical providers:-

This can result due to end users taking time to learn the technology. This loss of productivity for the providers is another financial issue