Select 2 items from the list of potential clinical impacts of the EHR starting o
ID: 246118 • Letter: S
Question
Select 2 items from the list of potential clinical impacts of the EHR starting on page 96 in your text. (See attached)For each of the two you've selected;
-Define the relationship of these two benefits to the Triple Aim
-List specifically how the EHR can create this particular benefit.
-Identify factors that could affect or limit attainment of each clinical benefit.
those tor diabetes. is being conducted on creating measures and establishing methods for how healthcare quality (processes and outcomes). The National Quality Forum uality measure definition and tools for per- t, especially in the MU program (NQF n.d.). Other organizations are also evoted to establishing CQMs-in fact, an issue with CQMs today is that there are too many of Both the health insurance industry and providers are coming to recognize this a's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP 2013) studied 23 different commercial health plans use them to measure NQF) is one organization that CMS turns to for q rmance measuremen hese measures. ssue use igna, UnitedHealthcare, and others) and found 546 distinctly different measures in u In addition, AHIP found variation in measures intended to measure essentially the same thing. rmore, m ement. Eisenberg and colleagues studied the impact of the MU CQMs and found a lack ty of EHRs could not draw any of the measures in place were not necessarily contributing to actual quali im prov clarity in the measure specifications as well as technology challenges where relevant data from other systems. Additionally, the electronic CQM (eCQM) reporting tools were not aligned with clinical workflow; many of the eCQMs were out of date; and the MU measures ith measures required by other payers and organizations-often requiring slight but necessary variations in data collection (Einsenberg et al. 2013). The result of these studies and other efforts has been the development of a Core Quality Measures Collaborative between AH!P CMS, NQF, and national physician organizations (Caramenico 2015) Measuring the Clinical Impact of the EHR and Health IT The EHR and other types of health IT offer many potential benefits. Many of the CQMs in the MU program are intended to measure how well the EHR can support clinical benefits. Some specific examples of additional other considerations are as follows (AMGA and JHD Group 2009): .Access to clinical information Patient follow-up/recalls Reduced errors/patient safety More tailored patient education . Enhanced documentation
Explanation / Answer
REDUCE ERRORS/PATIENT SAFETY:
A) The use of EHR in health care industry has reduced the incidences of errors and have therefore contributed to the patient safety. This system have methods to generate alerts and reminders which draws our attention towards the occurence of these errors and thus helps to correct or avoid them. This increases the quality of care delivered and the client satisfaction. The patient experiences a healthy stay in hospital.
As the error with the use of EHR have reduced, the safety of the patient is also enhanced. This in turn helps to prevent the harm resulting from the sentinal events and thereby promotes the health of general population. The statistical data stored in EHR also helps for research and analysis. It helps to study the various health issues prevalent in community and to rule out measures to solve them.
EHR is also found to be cost effective. The expenses for maintaining those huge documents have streamlined to a small softwares and hardwares. This in turn have reduced the per capita cost of the healthcare industry which they used to spend in order to maintain the traditional health records.
B) Alerts and reminders like drug allergy, drug- drug contraindication alert available in the electronic system helps to reduce error and promote patient safety. This also helps in medication reconciliation that notify the physician when a harmful test is ordered, alerts when patients vital signs are deteriorating and many more technological advances are added up with EHR. It also prevents the errors resulting from misinterpretation of the orders, helps in legitimate documentation and easy accessibility to health information.
C) Every system have its own limitations and drawbacks. Likewise, in some instances, the privacy of data stored in EHR is questionable. The data available in EHR is health information pertaining to patient which is confidential. The access of unauthorized user may breach the security of this system and may result in loss of patient health information.
Not only this use of electronic system will make health professional dependent on technology. Though it saves the time and effort but at times it can make them lazy at work.
PHYSICIAN-PATIENT COMMUNICATION/MORE TIME TO SPEND WITH PATIENTS
A) All the information through EHR is available at fingertip, thus saves the time and efforts of the physician and render more time to spend with patients. The physician have more time to interact with patients which not only improves the communication between then but also foster a healthy relation that pave way to positive outcome.This makes them more efficient, care is improved and quality of services is increased. This in turn promotes the health of the population and the cost expenditure of the health care sector has also declined.
B) In every healthcare setting, the time spend for documenting by physicians and nurses consumes most of the time of their shift, which results in being less attentive to patient needs. This also increases the stress and workload on the staffs. With the use of EHR, this workload has been reduced and the staffs are stress free. The data stored is precise and is easy accessible in emergency.
The easy availability of health information helps to make necessary decisions on time. This mode of communication has promoted a less incidences of misinterpretations and foster a healthy physician- patient relationship. The patient often feel hesitated to express their concerns regarding health directly to the physician.In such cases, the electronic system helps the patient to brief their queries and concerns.
The EHR have reduced the stress of the patient and caregivers in filling multiple forms and have enhanced their experience with hospital stay.
C) Although EHR saves time and effort and is easily accessible but it is not applicable among all clients who is availing health facility.