How Meaningful Use Certified EHR Came To Be
The history of the electronic health record dates as far back as the late 1960s. The advancement of technology allowed data to be moved from punch cards to keyboards. The parallel efforts around the country are all for the efficiency and improvement of the delivery of healthcare.
These systems may have varied descriptions, but all of them have the been developed to serve a purpose. It may have been described differently over the last fifty years up to its present day description of Meaningful Use certified EHR. But these systems exist because of the need to eradicate logistical issues, to reduce the time consuming clinical bookkeeping, and to have access to medical and healthcare information readily available to healthcare professionals.
The commercialization of EHRs happened in the nineties. Homegrown systems matured academically and technology became widely available. The IT industry provided greater computing knowledge, and the customer base began developing. Eventually, heterogeneity among users became a challenge with the arrival of personal computers and of course, the Internet.
That could be the same old problem with EHR in the millenium age. It might still have been the case for the Ebola victim who died because of an error in the EHR system. While it might have been a flaw in electronic health records, let us first look at the way EHR was designed in order to cater to the exclusive demands of each healthcare professional.
EHR vendors loved systems that have manageable footprints. Those are systems that can be handled by smaller IT team and launched on Windows OS. Electronic health records also tend to have physician specific workflows, meaning that doctors are typically shielded away from the hospital EHR except when they are specifically looking for data entered by finance personnels or unit clerks.
The lesson to be learned in the Ebola case was that the routine use of EHRs might have bred a leniency with regards to healthcare professionals treating cases as routine and not something of grave danger. According to research, it was a case of misdiagnosis and the inefficient and ineffective usage of electronic health records. Although errors in diagnosis would typically only affect one patient at a time, sometimes, it only takes a single mistake to ruin its public health reputation.
Those theories may still be speculated upon, but there are EHR safety guidelines that we should be aware about. Health records are there to make data easier to access, yet in the case of Mr. Duncan, there was obviously a failure between nurse and doctor in conveying that the patient was indeed exhibiting symptoms of Ebola. Concerns about online and offline information were raised, but the bigger factor lies on the lack of training and awareness.
Check if your device hardware and software are all working fine. A glitch or bug or any malfunction can impair not just a department but can cripple the entire community. Use the EHR appropriately, that is, to comprehensively monitor and improve patient safety. CPOE should be implemented.
These guidelines may not be enough as there are many institutions that are still not up to the code. It could be a long process in accomplishing the first stage of Meaningful Use, which states that CPOE should have at least 30 percent of medication orders. During the second stage, we must be able to deliver sixty percent of lab, medication, and radiology orders via CPOE.
These systems may have varied descriptions, but all of them have the been developed to serve a purpose. It may have been described differently over the last fifty years up to its present day description of Meaningful Use certified EHR. But these systems exist because of the need to eradicate logistical issues, to reduce the time consuming clinical bookkeeping, and to have access to medical and healthcare information readily available to healthcare professionals.
The commercialization of EHRs happened in the nineties. Homegrown systems matured academically and technology became widely available. The IT industry provided greater computing knowledge, and the customer base began developing. Eventually, heterogeneity among users became a challenge with the arrival of personal computers and of course, the Internet.
That could be the same old problem with EHR in the millenium age. It might still have been the case for the Ebola victim who died because of an error in the EHR system. While it might have been a flaw in electronic health records, let us first look at the way EHR was designed in order to cater to the exclusive demands of each healthcare professional.
EHR vendors loved systems that have manageable footprints. Those are systems that can be handled by smaller IT team and launched on Windows OS. Electronic health records also tend to have physician specific workflows, meaning that doctors are typically shielded away from the hospital EHR except when they are specifically looking for data entered by finance personnels or unit clerks.
The lesson to be learned in the Ebola case was that the routine use of EHRs might have bred a leniency with regards to healthcare professionals treating cases as routine and not something of grave danger. According to research, it was a case of misdiagnosis and the inefficient and ineffective usage of electronic health records. Although errors in diagnosis would typically only affect one patient at a time, sometimes, it only takes a single mistake to ruin its public health reputation.
Those theories may still be speculated upon, but there are EHR safety guidelines that we should be aware about. Health records are there to make data easier to access, yet in the case of Mr. Duncan, there was obviously a failure between nurse and doctor in conveying that the patient was indeed exhibiting symptoms of Ebola. Concerns about online and offline information were raised, but the bigger factor lies on the lack of training and awareness.
Check if your device hardware and software are all working fine. A glitch or bug or any malfunction can impair not just a department but can cripple the entire community. Use the EHR appropriately, that is, to comprehensively monitor and improve patient safety. CPOE should be implemented.
These guidelines may not be enough as there are many institutions that are still not up to the code. It could be a long process in accomplishing the first stage of Meaningful Use, which states that CPOE should have at least 30 percent of medication orders. During the second stage, we must be able to deliver sixty percent of lab, medication, and radiology orders via CPOE.
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