The Importance of Electronic Medical Records (EMR) System in the Healthcare Sector of Australia
Discuss about the Information Systems for Electronic Medical Records.
The quality of healthcare has become one of the essential elements of the Ministry of Health (MOH) in Australia for very many years (De Moor et al., 2015, p. 163). The most core actions that are being undertaken by the MOH is to expound the health quality in Australia using a Telehealth project. Therefore, the Telehealth system is supposed to comprise following key components lifetime health plan (LHP), continuous medical education (CME), health information and education (HIE) and Teleconsultation. With the provided business components, Electrical Medical Records System (EMR) plays a significant responsibility in making sure that patients past medical records are well and securely stored (Ravindra, Chandra, and Dhenesh, 2018). Despite the fact that even at the moment some elements under the Telehealth projects in Australia exist and are readily accessible over the internet, the problem is that they have not yet been into implementation. Accordingly, Electronic Medical Record (EMR) is defined as a safe real-time point-of-care patient-driven information resource for medical practitioners (Zhang, Qiu, Tsai, Hassan, and Alamri, 2017, p. 89). The EMR is a useful resource in healthcare sector since it is used to help practitioners in deciding clients by allowing them to gain quick access to patient’s medical records at the time of need (Furukawa et al., 2014, p. 1674). In addition to the real-time evidence-based support, EMR helps to automate as well as streamline the practitioner’s flow of work, closing loops in communication and response that is likely to lead into delays or openings in the care process (Friend, Jennings, and Levine, 2017, p. 22). On a similar note, EMR enhances the gathering of data for use and other related clinical care like quality management, billing, resource planning, outcome reporting, and health disease surveillance (Hollenbeck, Bomar, Wenger, and Yaszay, 2017, p. 425).
Therefore, a health organization in Australia are striving to see to it that Telehealth becomes active as it is the expectation of healthcare providers. Consequently, the effort by health organizations pushing for the use of information technology (IT) in the health sector is to ensure that it achieves the perspective of patients gaining access to care at any place instead of being forced to travel to their registered care (West, Borland, and Hammond, 2014). As a result of using Electronic Medical Records in the admission of healthcare services in Australian hospitals, it would greatly help to reduce the hassle and tussle that id faced by most patients in Australia who have before suffered challenges regarding receiving medical services from healthcare facilities they are not registered.
Key Components of Telehealth Project
The demands of the healthcare sector in Australia is recommending the use of EMR implementation in all local, regional and national healthcare organizations because of various reason. The most key requirement being to make sure that as a country it stands a better position to ensure that the health of its citizens comes first.
Offer secure, dependable and real-time access to patient health record information when and when it is required for the support of care
Therefore, some of the highly important requirement here include to provide tools and equipment such as audit trails, to guarantee patient clinical information confidentiality as safety (Ginsberg, 2017). The systems should be accessible and reliable such that it should be capable of running 24 hours in a day, seven days, in a month and all year round. Similarly, the system should be highly responsive and able to integrate with the healthcare flow of work. On the same note, it should be readily accessible whereby it has to support ambulatory care sections and inpatient as well as remote access.
The systems should be able to capture longitudinal and episodic electronic medical record information
In this case, the most vital requirements include
- The system has to make checks of he the captured information for purposes of rationality and provide time stamps, sources of information, in addition to modifications audit track.
- It has to comply with the set healthcare standard for message and vocabulary content.
- The system has to accept information from external systems and automated data capture instruments like laboratory analysis equipment, patient monitors as well as barcode scanners (Hodgkins, 2018).
- It should be able to ideally accept and integrate medical report information external from the immediate organization such as medication dispensing information from local pharmacies.
- The system has to provide unique tools for identification of patient information integration among different systems and environments minus a common patient identifier.
- It should allow for efficient data entry of all orders as well as documentation by certified practitioners, which comprise refill and prescription management. Also, it should perfectly support a range of clinical entry such as pointer devices, voice and handwriting recognition and keyboard.
- Furthermore, the system is supposed to allow for electronic signature where legally allowed by the government.
- The system has to accept patient self-reported health information.
- The application is supposed to perfectly differentiate between patients past data applicable across visits and range of care versus episodic data applicable to a single visit such as breathing sounds from the previous assessment.
- Fastly but not least, the application should allow for copying and paste data to allow for easy data forwarding to guarantee continuous care support, accurate order making as well as the efficiency of medical documentation.
The EMR application should operate as the practitioner’s main source of information at the time of providing care to the patient
- It has to able to keep a list of patient problems, their past health records, and physical exam, immunizations, orders, medications administered and dispensed, diagnostic results as well as images.
- The application has to allow entry into patient information required with integrated assessments, abating of information external the normal restriction.
- The application should offer access tools as well as display which can be tailored to the specialty and customized to the final user inclinations. Ideally, it should give problem, disease and patient circumstance integrated views.
- In the case of recurrent episodes, the system has to offer access to relevant previous information.
- The application should organize and highlight patient-related communications like diagnostic results, messages and support management communication till resolution.
- Also, the EMR information should also include progressive visit, nursing, consult documentation, as well a patient functional condition in a coded form.
Currently, EMR is described as one of the most excellent digital types of patient’s part graphic representation, which offers an instant, secure and real-time access to the longitudinal record of the patient health data generated by either a single encounter or more in the ant healthcare service delivery environment. Apart from only the EMR working as a database of clinical information regarding the patient because of the medical records that it keeps such as past medical history, vital signs, medications, progress notes, immunizations, allergies, radiology reports, laboratory results, billing information and patient demographics among many others EMR serves other functionalities in the organization. Some of these functionalities include support for patient self-management, medical decision support, education and research, place of work policies and process support, as well as populace health management (Moja et al., 2014). Therefore, EMR has different implementations of the above-stated functions. Thus it can be utilized in a range of scopes or structures to interface with the system which expounds its functionality like imaging information system, laboratory information system only but to mention a few.
In this case, requirements directly refer to the services which a product like a software model is supposed to provide in addition to the constraints in which it should maneuver (Jones, Rudin, Perry, and Shekelle, 2014, p. 50). As a result, there is some features, capabilities, attributes, and qualities that the software application need to contain in order for it to be of value to the user, organization and any other form of stakeholder. These system requirements are influenced specifically by the customer’s likes, prejudice as well as dislikes and organizational subject matters. The understanding and elicitation of the user need and requirements are one of the core elements of any successful success project specifically under computer software development. Accordingly, this makes it possible for the development of a product which is acceptable and satisfying to the client or that achieve the needs are requirements of the business.
Significant Role of EMR in Managing Patients’ Medical Records
In the case of this paper, the EMR requirements are categorized into two main classes that are functional requirements and non-functional requirements. On the side of functional requirements, it describes how the system is capable of performing its functions, and its components have to explicitly feature the needs and functionalities of the end user for the system to be said that it is effective to its work and operations. Therefore, functional requirements are directly related to and are derived from the objectives or responsibilities the that end user expects to attain like in the case of EMR the capture, storage, and retrieval of patient medical history, support for clinical decisions together with prescription, supporting education and research findings, reminders of appointments and diagnostics among others (Maillet, Mathieu, and Sicotte, 2015, p. 41). On the other hand, the non-functional requirements describe what the software model should look like, or it specifies the criteria used to judge the application. The non-functional requirements include matter related to quality attributes the software model like security, stability, usability, maintainability and many others (Krousel-Wood et al., 2017). These requirements tend to be much general for the entire system. There are the requirements that the system is supposed to be so that to attain the frictional requirements. For instance, in order to have a proper and secure as well as retrievable medical records, the software application has to be built with a backup database, have a high resolution and connectivity speed with the database server in addition to security mechanism the enhances high database integrity.
- During the last working day of every month, the system will be required to provide a summary of the medication prescription administered to patients, their costs as well as the generation of prescribing doctors during that period.
- The software model will automatically generate each month’s medical report for printing after 11.59 pm on the last working date of every month.
- The medical report shall be created for each department and provide a list of the specific drugs by name, the total prescription number, the total cost of the prescribed drugs, as well as the dosage, prescribe with the period one month.
- The access to all patient records shall be solely restricted to the authorized user that as health practitioners as outlined by the management of the healthcare organization access control list.
On the other hand, provides another approach to classifying EMR requirements as system requirement and customer requirements. The classification is found on the abstraction such that the user refined requirements are non-representational proclamations of the services that the system is anticipated to offer to the user, the limitations under which it has to run, while system requirements consists expansive, detailed, low-level description of the application’s services, functions, as well as operational constraints and the description what is to be exactly executed by the model.
In order to become an outstanding healthcare organization the best way to approach the EMR vendor, the business ought to have an open mind and should have a clear understanding of its goals, as well as the desire to look at their software vendor like a partner. Accordingly, in this case, the healthcare organization is supposed to focus on the tangible business results, which means enhanced resource usage and better time delivery of service to clients.
Functional and Non-Functional Requirements for Successful EMR Implementation
When it comes to selection of electronic medical record (EMR) or any other enterprise application model, this is one of the most significant decision that a healthcare organization should make. The new application software is responsible for a myriad of responsibilities such patient, clinical, financial information as well as operational information which has a big impact on the corporation and its clinicians as a whole. Therefore the matter of selecting the software should be taken with a lot of concern because it is a critical part as far as the operation of any enterprise is concerned. Certainly, research has shown that companies that invest in a methodical selection course considerably decline the risks of common issues like lack of medical buy-in, budget overage, lack of critical software functionality and failure to attain a business target. As a result, a well thought out disciplined methodology can offer objective analysis concerning the dissimilarity between solutions and how they best suit the healthcare facility’s requirements. Indeed, this approach can support the business to be able to determine the feasibility of different options. Similarly, selection of the software helps to avoid cases of working with emotions and allow work from a real substance of a solution to make sure that sound decisions are made.
Define the Enterprise Requirements: To be in a better place to identify and evaluate appropriate solutions the health organization will have to ensure that it has clearly understood its needs and wants (Haidar et al., 2017. P. 21). Similarly, the organization should seek a fit with the vendor regarding on having a similar outlook towards the business, in the case of focus on agility, proactive attitude as well as transparent and prompt communication. Therefore, the healthcare organization should strive to make sure that the EMR software defines the facilities and not designing the system which has become a common mistake amongst enterprise vendors. That is to mean that the health care firm should ensure that it clarify its need to see to it that the software vendor becomes capable of not only fulfilling the technical requirements but also identify special requirements for the healthcare. Thus, such an opportunity enables the software vendor to design the software in the most appropriate manner.
Reconciliation of the process conformity with flexibility: In the modern world, many businesses are finding themselves at a crossroad of an extremely volatile business setting. In such a case, the specification of explicit requirements for an inherently inflexible software application as a challenging task (Wu, Chiu, Yeh, and Wang, 2017, 33). Since the process of requirement collection entails both functional and non-functional requirements, the most appropriate approach is to make sure that that the process of requirements collection is simple, during the initial phase so as to have the essential structure correctly and delve into the details at a later date, together with an inbuilt flexibility into the structure. A complete task may take quite a lot of time alongside with skills and effort put together (Xu, Da Xu, Cai, Xie, Hu, and Bu, 2014, p. 1579). Once all the business requirements have been clarified the vendor is now ready to go on and delve into the details of the system because these requirements translate the vendor into becoming competent both in the technical front as well as compliance to the industry’s best practices and quality standards. The business should clarify the expectations on the feature list by drawing up the list of vital features that the software needs to accomplish.
How other Healthcare Organizations have implemented the use Electronic Medical Records (determine at least three companies or organizations utilize such technologies to improve business effeiciency)
Current the use of Electronic Health Records (EHR) is quickly growing in Australia, and it has advanced to the point that one would think that is a rule and not an exception among both public and private healthcare. As a result, research done by the health sector of Australia shows that the use of electronic medical records, as well as electronic health records (EMRs/EHRs), is dynamically revolutionizing the healthcare sector in the country (Ose et al., 2017). The reason is that the use of electronic paper-based medical are being faced out with the constantly changing technology thus most healthcare facilities are going digital by embracing EMR/HER (Marceglia, Fontelo, Rossi, and Ackerman, 2015, p. 488). Therefore the most prominent electronically disseminated service in the healthcare sector includes the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) and electronic medical records (EMRs). The Australian Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) is a safe electronic subset of an individual’s total health information, safely kept and shared through a linked network system (Wager, Lee, and Glaser, 2017). Moreover, as a result of the advancements being experienced in the healthcare sector, there is another healthcare system such as patient portal electronic prescription and scheduling systems that have been created to make the electronic healthcare delivery more effective and efficient (Ventola, 2014, p.356). For example, in the modern setting most health organization that have embraced EMR systems have established patients portals as a way of enhancing the patient transparency and accessibility (Williams et al., 2015). The introduction of the patient portal in the healthcare is hanging how patients gain access to their health records (Weaver, Ball, Kim, and Kiel, 2016). The patient portal has made it easier for patients to be updated about their EMR and EHR which enables them to know their past health records, medications, and treatments.
The use of EMR has made it possible for healthcare organizations to exchange health-related information between the different health departments within an organization (Nguyen, Bellucci, and Nguyen, 2014, p. 779). Thus, this has aided in healthcare facilities offering clients with the outstandingly quality and safe care. On the side, the organization EMR has simplified the way of managing care for patients making it easier to offer excellent service which is the core objective of any healthcare facility. Some of the benefits brought by EMR include:
Enabled quick information sharing between patients and their practitioners for instance by use of the patient portal (Silva et al., 2015, p. 265).
Providing accurate, complete and-to- date patient information
Make possible for fast access to patient records for more efficient and coordinated care.
Support clinicians to effectively diagnose patients reduced clinical errors and providing safe care.
Make it possible for a safer and more dependable prescription process.
Aided to ensuring patient security as well as privacy.
The violation of Healthcare code of conduct is likely to cost anyone a colossal amount of money of up to $1.5 million should it be reported or detected in the United States (Collen, and Ball, 2015). However, due to lack of proper training among clinicians these violations are likely to hamper the medical care that a patient is supposed to receive. Additionally, since these healthcare systems are electronic, they are likely to face cases of hacking where intruders are likely to breach into the data of patients and access their files (Petrides et al., 2017, p. 10). Some of these instances have been experienced before such as the Ransomware attack in 2017, which place patients at extra risks. Furthermore, electronic medical records systems are very expensive to install, and they also come with additional expenses such as training the workforce on how to use the system and well as maintenance of the system to make sure that patients’ information is well kept free from hackers.
To avert the challenge of data breaches among healthcare employees within it is important that the management ensure that everyone is well trained and are aware of the healthcare code of conduct such as HIPAA measures (Muhsin, Sampath, and Gruber, Masimo Corp, 2015). Therefore, a healthcare organization should make sure all its workforces are vast with necessary preventive measures against any data breach. Some of the ways used to avert data breach in EMR include:
- Carrying out regular HIPAA risk analysis: It is a requirement by the HIPAA Security standards to conduct periodical risk analysis even when there is no any vulnerability (McPherson, and Pincus, 2017).
- Encryption of data at rest: The health care should include an emphasis on the need to make sure all portable data devices are encrypted (Pearlson, Saunders, and Galletta, 2016).
- Carry out consisted vulnerability assessment and penetration testing: the danger from malicious hackers stand a chance to wreak havoc on healthcare department Matthews, (2017). Thus frequent vulnerability would help to prevent cases of data breaching (513).
Collen, M.F. and Ball, M.J. eds., 2015. The history of medical informatics in the United States. Springer.
De Moor, G., Sundgren, M., Kalra, D., Schmidt, A., Dugas, M., Claerhout, B., Karakoyun, T., Ohmann, C., Lastic, P.Y., Ammour, N. and Kush, R., 2015. Using electronic health records for clinical research: the case of the EHR4CR project. Journal of biomedical informatics, 53, pp.162-173.
Friend, T.H., Jennings, S.J. and Levine, W.C., 2017. Communication patterns in the perioperative environment during epic electronic health record system implementation. Journal of medical systems, 41(2), p.22.
Furukawa, M.F., King, J., Patel, V., Hsiao, C.J., Adler-Milstein, J. and Jha, A.K., 2014. Despite substantial progress in EHR adoption, health information exchange and patient engagement remain low in office settings. Health Affairs, 33(9), pp.1672-1679.
Ginsberg, D. (2017). Successful Preparation and Implementation of an Electronic Health Records System. [ebook] California: California Medical Association Foundation. Available at: https://www.cmanet.org/files/pdf/ehr/best-practices-7.pdf [Accessed 12 May 2018].
Haidar, Y.M., Moshtaghi, O., Mahboubi, H., Ghavami, Y., Ziai, K., Hojjat, H., Armstrong, W.B. and Djalilian, H.R., 2017. Association between electronic medical record implementation and otolaryngologist productivity in the ambulatory setting. JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery, 143(1), pp.20-24.
Hodgkins, M. (2018). Electronic Health Record (EHR) Implementation – STEPS Forward. [online] STEPSforward.org. Available at: https://www.stepsforward.org/modules/ehr-implementation [Accessed 12 May 2018].
Hollenbeck, S.M., Bomar, J.D., Wenger, D.R. and Yaszay, B., 2017. Electronic medical record adoption: The effect on efficiency, completeness, and accuracy in an academic orthopaedic practice. Journal of Pediatric Orthopaedics, 37(6), pp.424-428.
Jones, S.S., Rudin, R.S., Perry, T. and Shekelle, P.G., 2014. Health information technology: an updated systematic review with a focus on meaningful use. Annals of internal medicine, 160(1), pp.48-54.
Krousel-Wood, M., McCoy, A.B., Ahia, C., Holt, E.W., Trapani, D.N., Luo, Q., Price-Haywood, E.G., Thomas, E.J., Sittig, D.F. and Milani, R.V., 2017. Implementing electronic health records (EHRs): healthcare provider perceptions before and after the transition from a local basic EHR to a commercial comprehensive EHR. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.
Maillet, É., Mathieu, L. and Sicotte, C., 2015. Modeling factors explaining the acceptance, actual use and satisfaction of nurses using an Electronic Patient Record in acute care settings: An extension of the UTAUT. International journal of medical informatics, 84(1), pp.36-47.
Marceglia, S., Fontelo, P., Rossi, E. and Ackerman, M.J., 2015. A standards-based architecture proposal for integrating patient mHealth apps to electronic health record systems. Applied clinical informatics, 6(03), pp.488-505.
Matthews, E.B., 2017. Integrating the Electronic Health Record into Behavioral Health Encounters: Strategies, Barriers, and Implications for Practice. Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research, 44(4), pp.512-523.
McPherson, R.A., and Pincus, M.R., 2017. Henry’s Clinical Diagnosis and Management by Laboratory Methods E-Book. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Moja, L., Kwag, K.H., Lytras, T., Bertizzolo, L., Brandt, L., Pecoraro, V., Rigon, G., Vaona, A., Ruggiero, F., Mangia, M. and Iorio, A., 2014. The effectiveness of computerized decision support systems linked to electronic health records: a systematic review and meta-analysis. American journal of public health, 104(12), pp.e12-e22.
Muhsin, B., Sampath, A. and Gruber, T., Masimo Corp, 2015. Systems and methods for storing, analyzing, retrieving and displaying streaming medical data. U.S. Patent 9,142,117.
Nguyen, L., Bellucci, E., and Nguyen, L.T., 2014. Electronic health records implementation: an evaluation of information system impact and contingency factors. International journal of medical informatics, 83(11), pp.779-796.
Ose, D., Kunz, A., Pohlmann, S., Hofmann, H., Qreini, M., Krisam, J., Uhlmann, L., Jacke, C., Winkler, E.C., Salize, H.J. and Szecsenyi, J., 2017. A personal electronic health record: study protocol of a feasibility study on implementation in a real-world healthcare setting. JMIR research protocols, 6(3).
Pearlson, K.E., Saunders, C.S. and Galletta, D.F., 2016. Managing and Using Information Systems, Binder Ready Version: A Strategic Approach. John Wiley & Sons.
Petrides, A.K., Tanasijevic, M.J., Goonan, E.M., Landman, A.B., Kantartjis, M., Bates, D.W. and Melanson, S.E., 2017. Top ten challenges when interfacing a laboratory information system to an electronic health record: Experience at a large academic medical center. International journal of medical informatics, 106, pp.9-16.
Ravindra, S., Chandra, R. and Dhenesh, V. (2018). A Study of the Management of Electronic Medical Records in Fijian Hospitals. [ebook] Suva, pp.1-9. Available at: https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1507/1507.03659.pdf [Accessed 12 May 2018].
Silva, B.M., Rodrigues, J.J., de la Torre Díez, I., López-Coronado, M. and Saleem, K., 2015. Mobile-health: A review of the current state in 2015. Journal of biomedical informatics, 56, pp.265-272.
Ventola, C.L., 2014. Mobile devices and apps for healthcare professionals: uses and benefits. Pharmacy and Therapeutics, 39(5), p.356.
Wager, K.A., Lee, F.W. and Glaser, J.P., 2017. Healthcare information systems: a practical approach for healthcare management. John Wiley & Sons.
Weaver, C.A., Ball, M.J., Kim, G.R. and Kiel, J.M., 2016. Healthcare information management systems. Cham: Springer International Publishing.
West, V.L., Borland, D. and Hammond, W.E., 2014. Innovative information visualization of electronic health record data: a systematic review. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 22(2), pp.330-339.
Williams, H., Spencer, K., Sanders, C., Lund, D., Whitley, E.A., Kaye, J. and Dixon, W.G., 2015. Dynamic consent: a possible solution to improve patient confidence and trust in how electronic patient records are used in medical research. JMIR medical informatics, 3(1).
Wu, C.H., Chiu, R.K., Yeh, H.M. and Wang, D.W., 2017. Implementation of a cloud-based electronic medical record exchange system in compliance with the integrating healthcare enterprise’s cross-enterprise document sharing integration profile. International journal of medical informatics, 107, pp.30-39.
Xu, B., Da Xu, L., Cai, H., Xie, C., Hu, J. and Bu, F., 2014. Ubiquitous data accessing method in an IoT-based information system for emergency medical services. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, 10(2), pp.1578-1586.
Zhang, Y., Qiu, M., Tsai, C.W., Hassan, M.M. and Alamri, A., 2017. Health-CPS: Healthcare cyber-physical system assisted by cloud and big data. IEEE Systems Journal, 11(1), pp.88-95.
Order an Essay Now & Get These Features For Free:
Turnitin Report
Formatting
Title Page
Citation
Outline
