1. Moving To electronic health record
Devry University
Alicia Cooper
Professor Rouse
2. Moving to Electronic Health Record
This paper is to inform you about the change to EHR or Electronic health record. DeVry
Hospital looking into electronic health information, which is the next generation of the medical
record. In this paper we will be disusing information about the electronic health record, security
measures, and the pro and cons of the electronic health record.
The electronic health record
The electronic health record is defined as a digital version of the patient’s paper charts. The
electronic health record is a real time patient centered records that the information that is
instantly available and secured. The electronic health record contains the medical and
treatment history of the patient, the electronic record has the same components of the medical
history, diagnosis, treatment plans, immunization, labs, and x-rays. The electronic medical
record has been in the process for a few decades to transition in the electronic health record
from paper record. In 1960s and 1970s when academic medical centers developed their own
systems the leaders saw the benefits to the medical industry wide standard. The transition will
improve the ability of the medical record which will require some security measures.
Electronic health record security measures
The electronic health record comes with some concerns about the privacy of the patient’s
information with the health exchange network. The Health insurance portability and
accountability act or HIPAA as it is known as sets the rules and regulations of the protection of
the patient’s information. HIPAA requires the measures to safeguard the electronic health
record to protect the security and integrity. There are safe guards that can be taken to ensure
the patients’ health record is protected access control and encrypting stored information.
Patient type and identity is the reliable methods for authenticating patient’s identity and link k
the patient to the patients’ health record. To cross reference the patient information with the
electronic system will eliminate double record. Safe guarding the patient’s information is critical
to prevent identity theft, medical identity theft, fraud, and abuse. Organizations require the
strict process and policies governing the electronic health record. Handling high sensitive
3. information within the electronic health record will require distinct system features which will
role based security access to defined categories of the patient health record that is under their
job role. VIP status which will restrict identification patients’ health record that individuals with
permission for the VIP encounter and patients. The ability to assign an alias to the patients’
health record to mask the patient’s identity, ability to restrict patients from physicians who are
not the physician. Also can help the ability to block access to specific progress note or lab
results and the ability to track versioning or mask sensitive entries. With the security measures
there are pros and cons to every health information system. We will be looking at the pros and
cons of the electronic health record.
Pros and Cons of the health information record
The advantages of the electronic health record as many benefits to consider we will be looking
at some of the benefits and the disadvantages of the electronic health record. Research has
shown the benefits to be considering clinical, organizational, and societal outcomes. With the
clinical outcomes has shown to improve the quality of care and reduces the medical errors and
the patient level measures the accuracy of the care has improved. Organizational outcomes
include financial and operational performance as improved along with patients and clinicians
satisfaction with using electronic health record. Societal outcomes which is conducting with the
public for research. Some of the potential disadvantages with the electronic health record
which are include financial issues adoption and implementation cost. Also the ongoing
maintained cost and possible loss of revenue are possible disadvantages of the EHR system.
Conclusion
In this paper we have discussed the electronic health record, security measures, and the pros
and cons to the electronic health record. Overall it looks like the benefits of the electronic
health record in the facility will be a great additional to the facility. With the policies and
procedures in place that are needed for the electronic health record it will help with the
accuracy of the patients care.
