Benefits of the EHR for Improving Safety and Quality



Reflect on the benefits of the Electronic Health Record for Improving Safety and Quality...

Have you ever seen this happen? Human Factors in Healthcare


EHR systems have many benefits that has "significantly transformed healthcare, enhancing care coordination and improving patient outcomes" (Ibrahim et al., 2024, p. 2). With these benefits come mountainous challenges with quality, patient safety and confidentiality. EHRs help to improve the quality of care through carefully being designed to keep patient information integrity intact. Furthermore, CPOE has been a positive effect on patient care, "demonstrating a 85% reduction in medication prescribing error rates and a 12% reduction in ICU mortality" (Tewfik et al., 2024, p. 679) Other pros of EHR systems include: "clinical decision support systems, computerized physician order entry, effective information transfer and improved documentation, guideline adherence and reduced medication errors" Tewfik et al., 2024, p. 680). 

With EHR systems like Epic, there are many ways the HIT teams in clinical settings can include APRNs to give feedback on how EHRs can make the biggest impact in their office (Clementi, 2024). " At the start of the individualized training program, the training team set a goal for increasing provider proficiency—or how well they used the EHR—and efficiency—how quickly they were able to complete the necessary steps in the EHR. Before the program began, only 5% of physicians met the high proficiency target and 8% of physicians met the high efficiency target. After five months of the training program, 28% of physicians met the high proficiency target and 38% of physicians met the high efficiency target" (Clementi, 2024, para 10). EHRs are versatile, innovative and adaptable systems that have a huge impact on patient safety and quality of care. 




EHR systems:
  • Offer real time access to patient histories, lab results and clinician notes, which reduced errors and increases accessibility
  • Allow for greater patient participation allowing patients and their caregivers to access their health information, monitor trends and participate in their care plan which allows for more personalized healthcare.
  • Have the ability to recognize trends, flag potential issues and support clinical reasoning of the APRNs
  • Care coordination is enabled through fluid communication processes and sharing information among other disciplinaries.
  • Reduces gaps in care and identifies social determinant of health 
  • Increase efficiency and reduce costs by use of automation and providing workflows 
  • Prioritize patient safety through adverse effects, side effects and critical values such as Sepsis.(Clementi, 2024),  (Tewfik et al., 2024) and (Ibrahim et al., 2024)




Read here how Epic Systems Leads the Charge in Nationwide Health Data Interoperability 


References:


Clementi. (2024). Design, data, and ongoing training boost provider EHR satisfaction. EpicShare. https://www.epicshare.org/share-and-learn/design-data-and-ongoing-training-boost-provider-ehr-satisfaction

Extreme Networks. (2022, September 6). Electronic Health Records: past, present, and future [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxDb1mqNWrI

Ibrahim, A. M., Abdel-Aziz, H. R., Mohamed, H. a. H., Zaghamir, D. E. F., Wahba, N. M. I., Hassan, G. A., Shaban, M., El-Nablaway, M., Aldughmi, O. N., & Aboelola, T. H. (2024). Balancing confidentiality and care coordination: challenges in patient privacy. BMC Nursing, 23(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-024-02231-1

Meneses, J. (2024, September 3). Epic Systems leads the charge in nationwide health data interoperability | healthsystemcio.com. healthsystemcio.com. https://healthsystemcio.com/2024/09/03/epic-systems-leads-the-charge-in-nationwide-health-data-interoperability/

Pew. (2018, February 5). Electronic Health records: usability and unintended safety issues [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlQ60KaLeHg

Tewfik, G., Rivoli, S., & Methangkool, E. (2024). The electronic health record: does it enhance or distract from patient safety? Current Opinion in Anaesthesiology, 37(6), 676–682. https://doi.org/10.1097/aco.0000000000001429





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