Electronic Records in the Medical World

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 5: ANALYSIS1

Introduction2

The Healthcare Industry4

Medical Errors5

Paper-Based Health Records8

Electronic Health Record (EHR)10

Technology Adoption12

Adoption Rate of EMR12

Factors Influencing Adoption Decisions13

Challenges of Implementing EMR15

Benefits of an EHR17

Concerns with EHR implementation18

Barriers to Implementation of an EHR System19

Summary21

CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION24

Conclusion24

Recommendation25

REFERENCES27

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY30

CHAPTER 5: ANALYSIS

The healthcare industry faces many factors that jeopardize patient care. One major factor is medical error. In the year 2000, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) conducted a study and reported that approximately 98,000 people die each year in the United States due to medical error (Gans et al., 2005). Additionally, medical mistakes by doctors, nurses, laboratory personnel, and other medical practitioners cost the healthcare industry about 29 billion dollars each year (Kohn).

Medical error is very common in pediatric departments, particularly due to the difficulty in measuring out medical doses (Gans et al., 2005). Additionally, a primary cause of pediatric deaths is the lack of interoperability among pediatric clinics. Interoperability causes a delay in transferring information from physicians to pharmacies or other healthcare departments. According to a study by Gans et al. (2005), most of the drugs for children under age 12 are off-labeled, and there is no standard dosing available. Off-label use "is a practice of prescribing pharmaceuticals for an unapproved indication" (Gans et al., 2005, p. 25). Some medications are adjusted according to body weight and the nature of the child. It is also very difficult to find medical reactions in children compared to older people. Some drugs referred by physicians need to be diluted and the dose needs to be calculated before given to children (Gans et al., 2005). Calculation errors can result in an overdose of medicine, which can result in the death of the patient (Gans et al., 2005). Manually entering information or dictating instructions are other important causes of calculation error.

Most of the information about patients is stored manually. This chapter performs the analysis of data obtained in the entire research. After collecting the data, the researcher analyzed all the key points and jotted down the major findings through qualitative techniques.

Introduction

Information technology is growing quickly with the introduction of smart phones, messaging systems, and graphical user interfaces (Burt and Sisk, 2005). Information technology helps industries to operate at a higher level of effectiveness and productivity. People can communicate with each other across the world in a global community that has been transformed into a single virtual marketplace. Most U.S. economic sectors such as banking, retail, insurance, manufacturing, real estate, educational services, telecom, and many others have begun to adapt new trends in technology so that they can increase productivity and satisfy customers. Customer satisfaction is the main goal for any company to attain and sustain a competitive edge. The sustainability of any company or industry is based on the profit they gain.

The healthcare sector, which is a major industry and a key factor in the U.S. economy, lags behind other sectors in introducing new technologies (Burt and Sisk, 2005). This means that many healthcare providers still ...