Overcoming barriers to electronic medical record (EMR) implementation in the US healthcare system: A comparative study (original) (raw)
Related papers
Charting a New Course: Practical Considerations for Implementing an Electronic Health Records System
2008
To a startling extent, physicians today document their work in much the same way that physicians did in the nineteenth century. 1 Often, those unfamiliar with the United States's healthcare system and physician practices will assume that all physicians and hospitals have electronic health record ("EHR") systems that seamlessly share data as in other industries. The healthcare industry, however, spends a meager amount on information technology ("IT") compared to other industries. For example, the industry, as a whole, spends approximately two percent of gross revenues on IT compared with other industries that spend upwards of ten percent. 2
Critical areas of national electronic health record programs—Is our focus correct?
International Journal of Medical Informatics, 2010
Objective: National electronic health record programs are frequently associated with a number of problems. In view of their long duration and costs, efficient implementation of the programs with due regard given to the conclusions drawn thus far would be a meaningful goal from the economic point of view. In the present report we analyze programs from various countries with regard to the problems documented therein and derive, on a cross-country basis, the most common critical aspects of national electronic health record programs. These aspects should be given special attention in the implementation of future national electronic health record programs. Furthermore, measures which have proven to be useful in coping with the respective problems in individual countries will be suggested for each critical area.
2002
This thesis is about electronic patient records and medical practice. Electronic patient records (EPRs) are patient records stored electronically and accessible through computers. Although there are many types of EPR-systems, they all differ from paper-based records in that it is possible to read the same patient record simultaneously from different computers and data can be entered from many sites at a time. During the last five years, there has been an upsurge of interest in EPRs.
2012 Challenges in implementing nationwide electronic health record
2013
During the last decade, healthcare administrations in all developed countries have dedicated huge amounts of resources to the implementation of Electronic Health Records (EHR). This paper determines the challenges in implementing EHR and acknowledges effective implementation strategies ('topdown', 'bottom-up' and 'middle-out') used in different counties worldwide. The main challenges are communication, standardization, interoperability and funding. The adoption of EHR is associated to cost reduction in healthcare, but the use of EHR is also accompanied with different kind of problems, like technical, legal, privacy and security. Another major issue in EHR implementation is the quality of data stored. Despite the fact that EHR data quality is considered in the strict sense of data verification and validation, ensuring that EHR data are suitable for their intended use should also be taken into account. In Greece, although a number of EHR implementation attempts have been made, both in the private and public sector, they are for local use only. Implementing a national EHR is an entirely different issue from just expanding a clinical system across different organizations. It involves defining a policy and standards framework that can integrate public and private, local and central systems into a functional national information system. An implementation approach that could be followed in Greece is proposed, taking into consideration all the special characteristics of the Greek national health system.
Electronic Health Records: Challenges and Opportunities
Journal of International Technology and Information Management
During the last three decades, healthcare expenditure in the U.S. has substantially increased. If this pace of increase is not controlled, it will lead to disastrous results for the healthcare system. An effective use of health information technology would not only improve the quality of healthcare but help reduce healthcare costs considerably. However, risks of privacy and security of patient electronic health records are great. It is recommended that healthcare organizations use IT management best practices, follow proper risk assessment and management guidelines, and keep up with latest technological advances to ensure the privacy and security of patient data.
The Barriers to Electronic Medical Record Systems and How to Overcome Them
Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 1997
Institutions all want electronic medical record (EMR) systems. They want them to solve their record movement problems, to improve the quality and coherence of the care process, to automate guidelines and care pathways to assist clinical research, outcomes management, and process improvement. EMRs are very difficult to construct because the existing electronic data sources, e.g., laboratory systems, pharmacy systems, and physician dictation systems, reside on many isolated islands with differing structures, differing levels of granularity, and different code systems. To accelerate EMR deployment we need to focus on the interfaces instead of the EMR system. We have the interface solutions in the form of standards: IP, HL7/ ASTM, DICOM, LOINC, SNOMED, and others developed by the medical informatics community. We just have to embrace them. One remaining problem is the efficient capture of physician information in a coded form. Research is still needed to solve this last problem.
Real and imagined barriers to an electronic medical record
Proceedings / the ... Annual Symposium on Computer Application [sic] in Medical Care. Symposium on Computer Applications in Medical Care, 1993
We developed an electronic medical record for ambulatory patients as part of the integrated clinical information system at Beth Israel Hospital. During the four years since it was installed, clinicians have entered 76,060 patient problems, 137,713 medications, and 33,938 notes. Residents, who had to type notes in themselves, entered 49.5% of their notes into OMR. Several factors that we had predicted would be barriers to an electronic medical record, such as clinician reluctance to type or perform data entry, have not proved to be significant problems. Other anticipated barriers, such as difficulties with dual charting on paper during transition to an electronic medical record, have been realized. The major unexpected barrier that has been encountered is increased clinician concern about the privacy and security of full text notes relative to other data elements in the clinical information system. We have attempted to modify the electronic medical record so as to overcome some of th...
Health Affairs, 2005
To broadly examine the potential health and financial benefits of health information technology (HIT), this paper compares health care with the use of IT in other industries. It estimates potential savings and costs of widespread adoption of electronic medical record (EMR) systems, models important health and safety benefits, and concludes that effective EMR implementation and networking could eventually save more than $81 billion annually-by improving health care efficiency and safety-and that HIT-enabled prevention and management of chronic disease could eventually double those savings while increasing health and other social benefits. However, this is unlikely to be realized without related changes to the health care system. E M R S y s t e m s H E
2011
Purpose Despite the establishment of many early centers of EMR use in the 1970s and 1980s and an accompanying first wave of technological and health innovation, the widespread use of, and innovation in EMRs since the 1980s has been largely limited to government hospitals and visionary health organizations. It is estimated that EMR use is only about twenty, ten and five percent in the United States hospital sector, physicians’ offices and amongst clinics, respectively. Technology adoption rates are particularly low amongst smaller physician practices (three percent adoption) where there are prohibitive technology implementation costs. The reasons for this slowdown in adoption are many, but research conducted amongst three key interest groups (health providers and managers, politicians, and citizens) seeks to reveal the different barriers restricting EMR growth, to understand how EMR adoption could be encouraged and to gauge whether increased EMR adoption would be of net qualitative a...