Healthcare Service and Healthcare

¶ … Electronic Health Records

Adoption of electronic health records, commonly referred to as EHR in short, provides a significant chance for secondary application of clinical data for clinical research purposes. For instance, because individual genetic variants do not have a strong correlation to complicated illnesses, the need for genome-wide associations studies increases if significant results are to be realized (Kohli & Tan, 2016). This paper conducts HER evaluation through four measures linked to HER on care quality, optimization of software and the work flow designs.

The Role of EHR

EHR systems are support tools for clinicians and have the potential to decrease the strain that the clinician is often subjected to in terms of memorizing and cognition. They also have the advantage of efficiency. They enhance the effectiveness of care and improve coordination. Patient centered equitable and timely provision of quality healthcare requires tools that can help to organize and provide information display that places the data of the patient in specific context. It also helps to synthesize such information with the medical evidence that is available and facilitates the decision-making by the clinician. Such organization and information display is essential in supporting clinical care effectively and drastically, reducing human error in the practice (Nohr, 2006). The dispensing of medical care occurs in environments that are highly interruptive. These environments are highly controlled, in terms of provider specific and site, decision-making modes based on rules. The EHR interface through which care teams input and retrieve information, and on many occasions, guidelines for care and evidence for medical care, should be efficient, responsive and intuitive to the varying information needs by the clinicians so as to effectively support medical practice.

EHR Stakeholders

Patients, providers and purveyors are the three basic stakeholders in EHR. Those in indirect access to EHR data such as insurers, local, state and public agencies, clinical researchers, technology vendors and accreditation agencies constitute the secondary stakeholders. Pharmaceutical companies, medical device manufacturers and biotech research firms may benefit as they contribute to EHR integration and execution (Nguyen, Bellucci & Nguyen, 2014). It is imperative that EHRs support primary stakeholder goals. Such goals include improvement of the quality of healthcare outcomes, more coverage of healthcare service and the reduction of the cost of healthcare service (Lyke 2009). The method to apply in accomplishing these aims is a controversial matter because each of the stakeholders comes with their unique concerns and objectives that come into conflict with the goals of others. Expanded cover of healthcare service calls for higher cost in healthcare. It is important to invest in integration with the rest of the providers if patient care quality is to be improved. Yet, integration increases the costs. Providing high quality care for the population needs investment in technology so as to collect, assess or analyze and disseminate clinical results. All these combine to increase costs.

EHR Usability

The planning of implementation of EHR is important to the probability of the success of the implementation. The selection of the healthcare systems that serve the organization's needs best are important at this stage. The literature points to the need for organizations, at the onset, to review their technical requirements, organizational culture, the implementation environment and the staff perspectives at the various levels. It is also important to cultivate partnerships with external stakeholders so as to exchange and share information about patients. Smaller organizations with limited resources have entered network arrangements in order to emulate the systems by larger organizations. Nevertheless, some small organizations have found the systems used by larger organizations ineffective in their circumstances (Armijo, Mcdonnell & Werner, 2009). The aspect of usability is essential in enhancing both wider adoption and meaningful EHR usage. Utility means the absence or existence of capability of a system or the features that are necessary to carry out tasks as one uses the system. Usability shows the ease with which users accurately accomplish a given task while using a system.

Training and User Support

The literature says that training affects all involved professional groups. A number of studies have pointed to the need to invest a lot in upfront training programs for all staffs to avoid negative effects on workflow patterns, setbacks that are costly and productivity losses. That some literature also observes that support for post implementation is usually limited and organizations would possibly gain from the post implementation period in which there is easy access to hands-on support. Some of the best practices include getting organizational commitment to invest in training programs, assessing training needs, user skills, selection of training staff that are appropriate, matching of training needs to the needs of users, using a multiplicity of post approaches for training, leveraging role model skills retraining on order to optimize EHR use and provision of training support (Herndon, Hwang & Bozic, 2007). Apart from training staffs, integrated health systems also trained physicians in their affiliated and owned practices that adopted the medical office model of EHR. Many of them also provided training to community physicians with varying medical record systems but admitted privileges. They were assisted to add to medical records while in the process of admitting patients to their care - via a web portal.

Impact of EHR on Quality of Care

EHR systems have lived true to expectations by enhancing the quality of healthcare service and safety. It has boosted communication among providers. Ensured better coordination, and supported participation of the patients. The guidelines in EHR systems support use of evidence-based research. The automation systems help to prevent occurrence of errors. Many hospitals have reported that EHRs have boosted efficiency. Indeed, EHR, as noted by many hospitals, is an important tool in quality healthcare delivery but it is not the only one. Thus, it is not possible to isolate EHR even if hospitals have noted a number of direct positive results (Cresswell, Worth & Sheikh, 2010).

Design of Workflows and Software Customization