Question

Managed care is characterized by a strategy of organizing healthcare providers with actual health care costs while managing the quality of care received by patients. As a result of the way managed care is set, issues are inevitable with this system. Some of the main problems associated with managed care affecting patients include lack of access to care, loss of member privacy, and reduced quality of care (Frank, Glazer & McGuire, 2017). There are many constraints that serve as barriers to access to care. These include extensive utilization review, eligibility for managed care, and covered benefits (Essock, 2016). Managed care patients lose part of their privacy because a lot of their health care information is shared to employees and providers. Managed care also reduces the quality of care because the competency of the providers may be questionable, and negligence is standard in an attempt to lower health care costs. EHR is a tool that can be used to address this problem. Adopting EHR in managed care can help improve the management of patient health data, which enhances confidentiality and privacy while supporting outcome-based care. Comment

Answer 1

Electronic Health Record or EHR is an integrated software which records the patients' details in a secure way which can be available immediately when needed by the authorized users and will not affect the privacy of the patients. It provides the facility for storing patient history, the diagnosis made, their treatment and medication plans and other details like immunization and allergies. This information is available to all providers for using to provide quality service to them and based on the information create a quality standard for all the health care systems. They providers can make decisions related to the patients care based on this information integrated together. The workflow of the provider can be streamlined thus making the care at the whole health care more efficient.

EHR has the feature that allows the information to be shared with several providers in the organization and with health care providers in other organizations yet keeping it safe and secure, accessible to the authorized users only. This facility will allow Managed Care to follow their strategy of organizing healthcare providers with actual health care costs while managing the quality of care received by patients effectively. They can overcome the problems of costs, quality and privacy they face without the implementation of EHR software.