Question

I. What is role-based security, and how does it ensure patient privacy in the EHR?

II. List pros and cons of clinical documentation templates, related to accuracy and completeness, and efficiency.

III. How can patient portals increase patient engagement in their own care, and decrease costs for healthcare organizations?  

Answer 1

1. Role based security strengthens the EHR system. Basically, it narrows down the number of people who can access the EHR. This is further concretized by encryption protocols which make access of these records safe when it's being viewed by either healthcare professionals or patients.
2. Pros: it minimizes paperwork, organizational difficulties, discrepancies among various records and facilitates easy handling. The cons are: might be lacking in certain areas requiring greater focus, differences between different templates can be bothersome to healthcare centres following different templates, it is not possible to list down each and every column in one templates thus reducing completeness.
3. Patient portals are quite innovative in the regard that they make the patient as involved as the healthcare provider. With access to their own portals, patients can easily look into prior physician recommendations, prescribed medication, lab test results, their medical history, etc. It decreases cost by reducing paperwork and repeated history. All the records are in one place so patients need not repeat unnecessary tests.