Question

• What are the pros and cons of electronic health records?
• How will the HITECH Act ensure that everyone will convert their clinic or hospital to EHRs?
• As we go forward, what do you think about patients receiving access to their doctor's notes?
• List at least two possible measures of health quality ~Be creative!

Answer 1

Electronic Health Records (EHR) was widely encouraged by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of 2009 of United States of America.

1.The pros and cons of EHR:

Pros:

• Better clinical outcomes (eg, improved quality, reduced medical errors),
• Improved organizational outcomes (eg, financial and operational benefits),
• Societal outcomes (eg, improved ability to conduct research, improved population health, reduced costs).
• Improved research data on health system

Cons:

• high costs,
• ongoing maintenance costs
• teaching the staff and gaining expertise
• perceived privacy concerns among patients

2. Ensuring all clinics or hospitals have changed to EHR:

The federal govt was providing financial assistance for the installation of EHR s. The statistics from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology’s e health exchange clarifies more on the change to EHR.

The American Hospital Association accumulated the data and they were able to demonstrate a momentous increase in the rate of basic and certified electronic health records use among hospitals between 2008 and 2015. In 2008, only 9.4% of non federal acute care hospitals were having basic EHR, which became 83.8% by 2015 and is moving steadily up.

The rate of EHR use among office-based physicians from a 2015 NCHS National Electronic Health Records Survey, showed 96 percent of hospitals and 78 percent of physicians used certified electronic health record technology.

To achieve the target of completely changing to EHR,

1. Fines were raised for HIPAA non-compliance
2. Widened the pool of entities (to include business associates, for instance) required to follow HIPAA standards
3. Established incentive payment programs

3.Patient receiving access to doctor's notes:

The patient receiving doctor's notes can be considered positively, as they get easy access to health care, fast access to health care and have clear evidenced access to health care.

The ''meaningful use" of EHR has been clearly mentioned in the Act, which has been briefed by CDC as:

• better the quality, safety, efficiency and reducing health disparities
• Involve patients and families in their health
• better care coordination
• better population and public health
• safeguard adequate privacy and security protection for personal health information

The patient' protection of privacy is of high priority and it has to be maintained as per the law and human rights.

4. Measures of health quality:

The process of using data to evaluate the performance of health plans and health care providers against recognized quality standards, is called health care quality measurement.

The major measures of quality are

• Structure: Assessing the infra structure settings of a hospital or clinic or health care agency to make sure sufficient provisions are present
• Process: Assess and measure the degree of steady care provided and the total standards of the care provided as per guidelines.
• Outcome: evaluate the health change in the patient as a result of care provided
• Patient experience: Contribute the feedbacks on the patient's care experiences.