Electronic Health Records

Electronic Health Records or EHR is an electronic version of a patient's health history. Many medical providers have switched all of their paper files over to electronic files. Of course with new technology, there will always be pros and cons.

Harvard Business Review has stated that EHR's "triple aim" is to reduce cost, improve quality, and enhance patient experience. The hope is to provide the medical professionals a way to have all of the patient files, including labs, images, prescription history etc. right at their finger tips so they can focus more on the patient when entering the room.

I feel that this has actually provided patients with better experiences and I feel that way as a patient. I like that in a couple of swipes on my Doctor's tablet and she can determine what course of action should be taken for my illness. I like the fact that she can send over my prescriptions to my chosen pharmacy and it will be ready by the time I get there. It's nice that she can see all of my test and imaging results on her tablet without digging through a file for them. They are neatly organized and it seems to be fast and efficient for her as well. It also helps that my Doctor's office also has an online portal where I can go to see my own results, see doctor's notes, and get any information on past appointments.

Like I had said in the beginning though; there's always pros and cons. In an article written in 2013 by Sam Narisi, he writes about a survey that was taken involving 212 practices where 58% of the physicians were not satisfied with their EHR system. The reasoning they gave was that doctors spend more time on documentation and see fewer patients. They also were dissatisfied with the specific software that their office was using because of inadequate training and support and poor usability. With saying that, they also saw the benefits to these new systems like being able to access patient history remotely, a reduction in missing patient charts, and payments from federal programs for adopting EHR's. While trying to figure out the new systems, they were still hopeful that adopting this new system it would provide better communication, improve care quality, and higher productivity.

All new technological systems have issues that need to be ironed out but with support and training it seems as though our medical professionals will have a new system that will provide them with more benefits to their work and to their patient care.

References

Jeff Butler, J. F. (2015, December 8). How to Make Electronic Health Records an Asset Instead of a Burden. Retrieved from Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2015/12/how-to-make-electronic-health-records-an-asset-instead-of-a-burden

Narisi, S. (2013, December 6). Pros and Cons of EHR systems, according to Doctors. Retrieved from Healthcare Business and Technology: http://www.healthcarebusinesstech.com/pros-and-cons-of-ehr/