Sample Essay On Adoption OF Electronic Medical Record In Healthcare Management

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Summary

Adoption of Information Technology in the arena of healthcare has been a major focus for both the government and the healthcare industry. A study by Jha et al (2010), analyses the situation across United States for the adoption of EMR (Electronic Medical Record) Systems. The benefits of EMR Systems are many but the implementation pace is not so impressive. Across the United States, the percentage of hospitals moving to EMR has risen roughly at two percent in a period of one year. The financial benefits offered by the government should have been reason enough to boost the adoption pace but it is not the case so far. Technology and cost plays a major role in EMR adoption as hospitals or clinics with larger infrastructure and awareness adopt early. Jha and his co-researchers in their study (2010) find that small and rural hospitals are the late adopters as compared to large and urban hospitals (Jha et al., 2010).

EMR Benefits in Healthcare Management

EMR System is more than converting manual paper work into an electronic dataset. An EMR system provides a robust system for managing Healthcare institutions large and small. An EMR system converts the patient information into a manageable and meaningful electronic record. It provides an effective tool for sharing and retrieving information. It acts as a decision support system and as a tool for alerts and reminders. It is also possible to share information across different organizations using an EMR system. An EMR has all necessary features to convert data into meaningful information for use by the healthcare institution. EMR has several core functions that facilitate various healthcare processes that include electronic data storage of patients, education materials for patients and health monitoring. EMR has features for Reporting, managing all results like lab reports and procedure results and decision support like reminders and assisted diagnosing. EMR provides beneficial administrative tools that facilitate processes like verification, authorization and chronic disease management. An EMR consists of industry standard reports and formats for generating reports for the organization. EMR provides a very effective tool for both large and small hospitals and clinics (Wager, Lee, & Glaser, 2013).

Core Technologies of EMR

The use of technology for the implementation of an EMR system would wary from vendor to vendor however, there are some core technologies for every EMR system. The core technologies of EMR include

Operating System: Windows, Linux, Mac or Unix

Application Programming Language: Java, C++, PHP or any other. Usually the application programming languages are not much of a concern for the healthcare institutions if they have employed some vendors to do the EMR implementation.
Relational Database: EMR system has a heavy dependency on database management systems and it is one of the essential technologies for an EMR implementation. The chosen technology may vary according to the choice, cost and preferences of the organization. The available data management systems are MS SQL, Oracle or MySQL.
Data Warehouse: A data warehouse is mostly for decision-making purpose and is a large data storage system collecting data from various online transaction-processing systems.

Network System: LAN and WAN.

The integration of all technologies is through Internet or Intranet. An EMR system will interact with other systems or make available the information through these channels.
WWW or World Wide Web is important for an EMR system that has to interact with different data and provide updated reports and information for various administrative purposes.
The above-discussed technologies form a base for implementing an EMR system in any institution. Jha et al. (2010), in the study identifies that cost of setting up an EMR system is a deterrent for many small clinics and hospitals and a reason why EMR adoption has a higher rate among large hospitals and clinics.

Informed Decision Making for Health care Executives

A part of EMR systems are administrative and reporting tools. EMR facilitates creation of alarms, reminders and allows access to latest research and findings that enables executives for effective decision-making. EMR data is also available across different organizations that enable Executives for reliable and informed decision-making. EMR is able to generate reports based on latest guidelines. Computer assisted diagnosis is an effective tool that may be employed for an informed decision-making.

Barriers to EMR Adoption

According to Jha et al. (2010), the biggest barrier for EMR implementation is cost. Their study finds that large and urban hospitals and clinics were more likely to adopt EMR than small and rural organizations. Apart from capitals resources, there is a general lack of awareness among physicians resulting in lack of support and willingness to transit to EMR. Training and trained staff is another major roadblock for moving to EMR system, as integration of a new system would require trained staff.

Strategies to EMR Adoption

There have been several strategies for promoting the EMR adoption across health care organizations. Government has played its part by by implementing policies that grant tax benefits, low loan interest rates or in some cases even, there are financial support policies. Increasing the awareness of EMR benefits for health care organizations is an effective means of removing the fears and facilitating the transition. Training programs to train staff is also an important aspect that would boost the EMR adoption. Other effective strategies would be creating educational programs on increasing EMR knowledge and awareness and certifications for EMR vendors.

Conclusion

All the major industries are going through a rapid change that is happening through adoption of technology. The change is not same across all organizations and the technological adoption is particularly modest in the area of health care industry. The adoption of EMR Systems in health care organizations would be a major boost for the industry in informed decision-making processes and providing better information and support to patients. Better strategies needs to be in place for facilitating the process of transition for organizations both big and small.

References

Jha, A. K., DesRoches, C. M., Kralovec, P. D., & Joshi, M. S. (2010). A progress report
on electronic health records in US hospitals. Health Affairs, 29(10), 1951-1957.
Wager, K. A., Lee, F. W., & Glaser, J. P. (2013). Health care information systems:
a practical approach for health care management. John Wiley & Sons.