Question

Will  EHRs possible be compromised in an age where 'hacking' is prevalent - if possible?

Answer 1

Ans) Despite the positive effects from using EHRs in medical practices, the adoption rate of such systems is still low and they meet resistance from physicians.

- Before EHR, healthcare institutions had a hard time maintaining, sharing and searching for patient information. Paper copies could be easily lost or misfiled among other paperwork. This fragmented system made it particularly difficult to pass along necessary information to different providers, say from a primary care doctor to a specialist, about the same patient,

- Lack of coordination often led to inappropriate or duplicate tests and procedures and unnecessary spending. This disconnect between providers posed health risks to patients and likely resulted in poorer outcomes.

- Electronic health record use requires the presence of certain user and system attributes, support from others, and numerous organizational and environment facilitators. In addition, difficulty of using EHRs and the non-use of specific functions result from the presence of barrier- hacking. For the EHR systems to have a positive impact on patient safety, clinicians must be able to use these systems effectively after they are made available.

- By considering the factors, it should be possible to improve the ability of clinicians to easily and effectively use the EHR. That, in turn, will increase the probability of quality and safety improvements through the EHR.

- The implementers can insulate the project from such concerns by establishing strong leadership, using project management techniques, establishing standards and training their staff to ensure such risks do not compromise implementation success

- Many medical schools do not employ the EHRs or train students in their use.

- Training medical students to rely upon EHRs and their decision support tools can only serve to accelerate universal the EHR adoption.