EHR Mandate

The adoption of EHR has been slower than expected (Gans 1323). With numerous systems available, it is particularly difficult for a smaller practice to identify which system best meets its needs. Other notable challenges for some practices include assumption of the capital investment as well as managerial responsibilities associated with the IT infrastructure. A common implementation challenge encountered is the lack of a universal vision and definition of EHR. Since there are multiple interpretations of the definition of EHR and attendant requirements, identifying current and future needs is a complex process for potential users. Short term limited ability systems will eventually become obsolete as there is a move toward more global EHR systems. On June 18,

Although the EHR is still in a transitional state, this major shift that electronic medical records are taking is bringing many concerns to the table. Two concerns at the top of the list are privacy and standardization issues. In 1996, U.S. Congress enacted a non-for-profit organization called Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). This law establishes national standards for privacy and security of health information. HIPAA deals with information standards, data integrity, confidentiality, accessing and handling your medical information. They also were designed to guarantee transferred information be protected from one facility to the next (Meridan, 2007). But even with the HIPAA privacy rules, they too have their shortcomings. HIPAA can’t fully safeguard the limitations of who’s accessible to your information. A short stay at your local

The main goals of the EHR mandate was to correct healthcare coordination amount the healthcare team of hospitals, physicians, and the lab. It is to ensure that private

EHR was created to have a technical way to securely exchange private and personal medical health information in hopes to improve the quality of care, decrease medical errors, limiting paper use, reduction of health care cost, and increasing a person access to affordable health care. A mandate was created for EHR stating that health records can be accessible to all facilities with patients having the capability to access their own health records at any time. Ameliorating the quality and convenience of care given to a patient, allow for cost saving measures, engage the patient and family to participate in their care, improve accuracy of medical diagnosis, and enhance the efficiency of the overall outcome of the patients’ health.

To better understand where my facilities progress is concerning EHR’s, I will first explain the six step process in implementing an EHR. In the first step, an organization must assess their preparedness to initiate an EHR. This includes their

An electronic health record (EHR) defines as the permissible patient record created in hospitals that serve as the data source for all health records. It is an electronic version of a paper chart that includes the patient’s medical history, maintained by the provider over time, and may include all of the key administrative clinical data relevant to that persons care. Information that is readily available includes information such as demographics, progress notes, allergies, medications, vital signs, past medical history, immunizations, laboratory data, & radiology reports. The intent of an EHR can be understood as a complete record of patient

Meaningful Use is the improvement of the way we deliver healthcare with the use HER. Several areas of patient care can be improved including how engaged the patient’s family can be in the healthcare process, better outcomes in the clinical setting and the empowerment of the patient to see more than they could in a paper chart.

All staff directly or indirectly connected to the EHR will be educated in the safe and professional use of patient information. The first group of staff to be trained on the EHR will be “super users” (SU’s). The super users will be the clinicians provided with extensive training on the software program and its safety features. (Simmons 2013. Pg 53). These clinicians will be the mainstay in the building between the staff and the informatics department. Each department in the facility will have 3 super users, 2 full time employees and 1 part time employee to rotate and fill in the gaps ensuring there is never a day without a super user. These individuals will receive 6 months of training comprised of 3 days/week at 5 hrs/day. After this is completed, all staff will be educated including employees, medical staff, contractors, volunteers and students. These training events will be a time to ask for feedback on health information safety and HIPPA laws. The feedback received during training will be used to monitor risks to the facility. (MN DOH, 2014 pg 4). Also we will be “sending compliance reminder emails routinely” (MN DOH, 2014 pg

In 2009 president Obama signed the Affordable Care Act, which is also known as ObamaCare, into law. ObamaCare is a national health care plan, which its main goal is to reform the American health care system so that every citizen would be insured by the year 2014. Healthcare providers are overwhelmed by the amount of patients they visit everyday due to the shortage of doctors we are having. One article from New York Times estimated that by the year 2025, America would be in shortage of 100,000 primary care physicians, based on the amount of doctors graduating and an increase demand of healthcare. Having said this, the atmospheric state in the

In addition to the core elements, providers will have to choose any five of the ten additional tasks to implement in 2011-2012. Some examples of these might be clinical lab results, patient appointment reminders and drug-formulary checks. This gives the providers a chance to choose their own path toward full EHR implementation and meaningful use. Legislation ties payments to the achievement of advances in health care processes and outcomes. The regulations are specific as to when providers will have to use particular functions in order to be considered meaningful users. The meaningful use rule acknowledges the urgency of adopting the electronic health record and recognizes the challenges it will pose on all providers.

The goal in healthcare today is to achieve better patient outcomes. Technology is changing daily that affects how patient care is provided. As the world around us continues to move into a more advanced technology based healthcare system incentives are offered to qualifying healthcare entities, provided they are utilizing approved health information technology (IT) to comply with standards set by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) (Jones, Rudin, Perry, & Shekelle, 2014). Standards such as meaningful use help ensure with the use of electronic health records (EHR) that patients are receiving quality care (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], n.d.). This paper will define and discuss the importance and implications of meaningful use relating to healthcare. Several key points will be discussed including an overview of meaningful use, analysis, further recommendations and a conclusion.

“An electronic health record (EHR) is a digital version of a patient’s paper chart. EHRs are real-time, patient-centered records that make information available instantly and securely to authorized users.” (healthit.gov) The EHR mandate was created “to share information with other health care providers and organizations – such as laboratories, specialists, medical imaging facilities, pharmacies, emergency facilities, and school and workplace clinics – so they contain information from all clinicians involved in a patient’s care.” ("Providers & Professionals | HealthIT.gov", n.d., p. 1) The process has proved to be quite challenging for providers. As an

2) Long-term care (LTC) facility - almost all LTC facilities use electronic systems to complete the Minimum Data Set (MDS) as well as have the ability to electronically transmit MDS data to federally required repositories (AHIMA, 2011). Thus, the driving forces compelling to LTC facilities to adopt EHRs includes changing consumers expectations, quality of patients’ care and safety and administrative efficiency and effectiveness (AHIMA, 2011).

Physical safeguards is very important because if a physician no longer needs the old system replaces it with a new one. The old system they want to dispose of will have to take proper precautions in destroying all of the patient's information. It would be devastating if the patients' information ever got into the wrong hands.

The definition of the EHR is a place in which patient records are created, stored and retrieved. Most professionals have incorporated them into their practice. EHR’s are known to have allowed the sharing of information between a patients’ caregivers in an increased amount of time. They increase safety and efficiency in the clinical setting by delivering legible information.