Electronic Health Records
Electronic Health Records
Moving from paper work to the electronic system is one of the challenges in the nursing industry. Health care industry enters a time of digitalizing its services in order to provide effective and quality services to patients. There are different ways of implementing electronic health records in a given healthcare industry. Implementing electronic health record system is not an easy thing as many may think. It requires critical decisions on how to change paper work system and implement the electronic one. Studies show that there are effective as well as poor ways of implementing electronic health records in health care industry, (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2012).
Adapting electronic health record system has remained a challenge in most health care organizations. In the process of implementing the system, employee’s productivity slows down. Although EHRs system aims at improving service delivery, research shows that most physicians have not appraised the aspect thus they respond slowly to the change. EHRs system is one of the most complex technology innovations in health care industry. When productivity of employees slows down, patient’s conditions worsen. Most of poor implementations of EHRs system is where an organization does not inform its users on the new technology. This is a significant problem simply because employees respond negatively towards adoption and implementation of the strategy. It is quite relevant to educate employees on the effectiveness of EHRs in order to facilitate effective implementation, (Cresswell & Sheikh, 2009).
Some health care organizations have successfully developed and implemented electronic health records system. A number of strategies in implementation helps different organization realize objectives of electronic health records system. The idea is to replace the common paper work in health care service delivery. Most studies on the effectiveness of the electronic health record implementation shows that the system gives little improvement on service delivery. There some studies that show how errors increase in the health industry when electronic system replaces paper work. Not all patients and physicians believe on EHRs due to the low quality level of service improvement, (Bates, 2010).
Having worked in health care industry, I believe that implementation of EHRs enables improve health care service delivery. The process of implementing electronic system is technical and requires expertise in order to get a desired one. Improved patient care in the nursing industry is among the few benefits of implementing electronic system. Study shows that, with implementation of electronic health record, the relationship between patients and clinicians improves due to the use of accurate measures when providing healthcare services. Office efficiency is another benefit simply because the system helps nursing industry reduce its paper work system say by half. In the short run, nursing industry may incur a lot of costs, but in the long run, there arise potential financial benefits, (Murphy, 2011).
When implementing electronic system, an organization must educate employees or system users on different aspects the system. This allows users accept the system hence ease the process of implementing. During the implementation process, some employees tend to oppose the decision while other second. Individuals who do not want change always refuse to learn on the effectiveness of the system thus they make it difficult to realize objectives of the system. A good number of workers move with technology thus always support such decisions. Employees who think that can not fit to the system fear losing job thus they tend to be reluctant in supporting such implementations, (Bates, 2010).
Reference:
Bates, D. W. (2010). Getting in step: Electronic health records and their role in care coordination.Journal of General Internal Medicine, 25(3), 174–176
Cresswell, K., & Sheikh, A. (2009). The NHS Care Record Service: Recommendations from the literature on successful implementation and adoption.Informatics in Primary Care,17(3), 153–160
McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K. G. (2012).Nursing informatics and the foundation of knowledge(2nd ed.).Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning
Murphy, J. (2011). Leading from the future: Leadership makes a difference during electronic health record implementation.Frontiers of Health Services Management,28(1), 25–30
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