How to Implement Electronic Health Records, Essay Example

Introduction

Electronic health records have become the means of replacing paper charts in many healthcare institutions across the world. The implementation while very costly has improved healthcare delivery in United States of America. Provisions offered in the affordable care act facilitated any healthcare organizations to implement the program successfully. The purpose of this presentation is to explore the use of Electronic Health Records in current institutions in an attempt to understand its benefits to my organization.

Description of the Electronic Health Record (EHR)

Electronic Health Records is a systemized approach to collecting medical data. It replaces the paper method whereby files and cabinets were used to store patient information. The process was mandated through the affordable care act. Legislations mandating this process emerged from the Office of National Coordination of Health Information technology. The HITECH Act was established mandating guidelines for implementation of electronic health records in United States of America. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) the Affordable Care Act is linked to the HITECH act in ensuring that mandated guidelines are observed in implementation of electronic health records in healthcare institutions across the nation (Burkhardt & Nathaniel, 2013).

President Bush, in 2004 set a goal for the nation stating that by 2014 every American should have an electronic health record. Three years later the Office of National Coordination of Health Information technology with the mandate to pursue this goal. When the Obama administration came to office in 2008 many regulations were already written and they have been incorporated in the affordable care act. The goal is securing accurate legible patient records. It was expected to improve healthcare quality by facilitating accessibility to patient records reducing duplication of records (Burkhardt & Nathaniel, 2013).

Student’s facility’s Plan

My organization has already implemented the electronic health record system. We followed the six steps.  It began with a system evaluation to acertain whether we were ready for the system to be implemented in our organization. The second step was designing the plan for implementation, which involved preparing employees to accept the change and creating a training program. Thirdly, we began complying with regulations for electronic health record use by becoming a certified system according to the HIPAA legislation (Federal Advisory Committee, 2015).

Fourthly, we began training using the guidelines planned previously. Along with this implementation began by employing the best vendors who are credible in using the most appropriate software for our organization. The fifth step was achieving meaningful use by becoming aligned to other systems in the organization so that transfer of data is facilitated. The last and final stage was continued quality improvement meaning that at intervals vendors will return and evaluate whether the system is functioning as planned or there backup data problems, slow transmissions among many other irregularities (Federal Advisory Committee, 2015).

Discussion of Meaningful Use

The main elements of meaningful use are sing the system to accomplish the tasks they were intended to do across the network such as e-prescribing. This means using certified software that is compatible with other systems for data to be transferred easily. The technology used must facilitate electronic exchange of data that improves quality of care. Meaningful use also implies implementing certified software the guarantees improvement in clinical quality (Bowman, 2013).

EHRs and Patient Confidentiality

HIPAA has two rues pertaining to electronic health records as it to patient confidentiality. They are the privacy and security rules, from which emerged a number of national standards. They include addressing technical and non-technical mechanism that ensures privacy and confidentiality. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 classified patients’ records as Protected Health Information (PHI).  Rules determine access to records, storage and auditing as well as the way in which records are transferred. Beaches occur when vendors do not install creditable software or those regulated by HIPAA. HIPAA has admitted that even though attempts were made to provide rules that are hoped to be carefully followed, hackers enter and create difficulties for systems. Therefore, it is recommended by HIPAA that organizations use the updated rules to evaluate their systems regularly for security breaches. This occurs in the best of electronic systems (Bowman, 2013).

Conclusion

The foregoing content outlined specific aspects of electronic health record use in United States of America. It is important to note that while this process came to prominence during the Obama administration it was the brain child of President Bush whose desire was for each American to have an electronic record by 2014. This dream was realized with the help of provisions contained in the affordable care act which offered incentive to health care organization which were reluctant to make the change due to extreme costs. Three years after the idea was conceived Office of National Coordination of Health Information technology emerged with the mandate to pursue this goal. They joined forces with HIPAA incorporating measures from the affordable care act goal, making it realty today. From reports 90% of healthcare organizations along with physicians have adopted electronic health records in their practice.

References

Bowman, S. (2013). Impact of Electronic Health Record Systems on Information Integrity: Quality and Safety Implications. Perspect Health Inf Manag.  10(Fall):

Burkhardt, M., & Nathaniel, A. (2013).  Ethics and Issues in Contemporary Nursing. Cengage Learning

Federal Advisory Committee (2015). How to implement electronic health records. Retrieved on November15t6h, 2015 from https://www.healthit.gov/providers-professionals/ehr-implementation-steps/step-1-assess-your-practice-readiness records/electronic-health-records.html