Wednesday, 21 December 2016

THE ADVANTAGES OF ELECTRONIC RECORDS IN HEALTH SECTOR

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The Advantages of Electronic Records in Health Sector
Muhammad Syazwan Baharudin
Universiti Teknologi Mara , Puncak Perdana , Malaysia







Abstract

                The objectives of this paper is to shown the advantages of electronic records in health sector, and to explain what are the electronic records furthermore to see how they can help improving the services in the health department also from the view point of person who are working in the electronic records department how they maintain and assist them in their task also we want to see what are the best practices in managing the electronic records in the health sector.

Keyword : records, health records, electronic records, management


INTRODUCTION
According to (Scotland, 2013) An Electronic Records Management (ERM) System is a computer program or set of programs designed to track and store records. The software can be used to manage the creation and maintenance of records within classification schemes, apply retention and disposal schedules, and control access and use. An ERM system should be able to capture records created by an organization’s business systems and applications. Moreover to add to this (Baird & Boak, 2016) stated  that the term “electronic medical records” may be used to describe a wide variety of information technology applications, from files on single patients to national databases (Greenhalgh et al., 2009). An EMR may be cross-organizational, designed to be implemented across a whole health-care system or it may be more fragmented, bottom-up, introduced within a single organization (Coiera, 2009). Issues concerning leading implementation may, realistically, be expected to vary, depending on the scale and scope of the proposed system.
Next (Scotland, 2013) also stated that the system should capture a record, along with any associated metadata, and categorize it within a classification scheme. Electronic records do not have the same implicit metadata as physical records so the extent of metadata that needs to be attributed to them is greater. An electronic record can be made up of many distinct parts or digital objects and the system used to manage them must be able to preserve all of those objects and reconstruct them as an authentic and reliable replica of the original record. (Katuu, 2016) state in his journal that a health record can be defined as the systematic patient record, in paper or electronic form that contains the complete and accurate description of personal, financial, social and medical information and is kept by physicians or other healthcare practitioners. In this instance, an EHR should be considered a subset of a health record.

Advantages of Electronic Records
As we all know from the above records are an important tools to records and store information same goes to the electronic records (Stanberry, 2011) stated that these are a few benefit of electronic health records thus are Reduction of cost Assuming savings estimates from various public sources are correct, Medicare would realize over $20 billion of potential savings per year, and private payers would receive over $30 billion in savings per year. Secondly, improved quality of care EHR systems help reduce medical errors by providing healthcare workers with diagnostic and treatment background information and decision support through fast access to medical literature and current best practices in medicine and also, computerized physician order entry (CPOE) – one component of EHR – increases patient safety by listing instructions for physicians to follow when they prescribe drugs to patients. Thirdly Improved record keeping EHR systems have the advantages of being able to connect to many electronic medical record systems. In the current global medical environment, patients are often traveling for their medical procedures. Many patients travel to US cities with academic research centers for specialty treatment or to participate in clinical trials. Coordinating these appointments and tracking down patient record via paper records is a time-consuming procedure.
            Next the advantages of electronic health records are according to (Stanberry, 2011) is that it can Reduced malpractice exposure it should be noted that EHRs also may offer physicians some degree of protection from claims of malpractice. There are several reasons for this, including improved access to legible patient records; standardized documentation; automatic notification of laboratory results; and increased efficiency of information transfer between referring and consulting physicians. If a claim is filed, the defense is likely to be aided by an ability to show adherence to evidence-based clinical decision support reminders and pop-ups and the ability to produce a complete, legible record. Various surveys, including one from the Medical Records Institute, indicate that nearly 20 percent of health care provider respondents reported receiving discounts from their malpractice underwriter as a result of having an EHR, and many believed that having an EHR system in place reduced their vulnerability to malpractice claims.Lastly the advantages of the electronic health records are it will Enhancement the record portability benefits companies and employees get transferred both within a nation, and indeed, globally. Transferred employees, whether on a brief or extended assignment, would feel more comfortable not having to worry about taking records with them, or fearing that without papers records, medical care away from home might be done without sufficient background information.
            the physician in an hospital also pointed the advantages of EHR this is stated by (Riesenmy, 2010) that  one physician pointed out that the positive effects from EMR are that it “can provide quick documentation of patient visits and assist in coding parameters  the valuable to avert entanglements because of billing problems will help us keep out of trouble”. all the physicians said that if EMR is used to improve efficiency by making documentation faster, tracking patient outcomes thereby improving patient care, reducing medical errors by providing meaningful time sensitive data, and programmed with alarms for averting risks such as drug interactions it would be “delightful”, “fabulous”, “all good”, and “I would love it”. The ultimate sense of EMR in terms of the practice and profession of medicine was that it was necessary for EMR to conform to the needs of the physician instead of the physician conforming to the needs of the EMR. In ensuring the quality data of the electronic records the technology are also one of the key component that are need to be noted as stated by (Sukumar, Natarajan, & Ferrell, 2015) interfaces, the solution for better quality assurance in health care analytics relies on organizational support for technological innovations and quality management.
            Furthermore, a research by (Narattharaksa & Speece, n.d.) said that electronic medical records can improved access to patient records, quicker turnaround time on various diagnostics procedures, error reduction, improved diagnostics, all of which ultimately improve outcomes (Marcus et al., 2009). In recent reviews of published research, Buntin et al. (2011)and Jones et al. (2014) showed that these sorts of quality and safety improvements were unambiguously present in the majority (62 and 56 percent, respectively) of recent studies on EMR implementation.

Types of Digital Records
            In addition according to (Katuu, 2016) that the National Archives of Austria has divided digital records into four categories which are:

1.      Documents created using office applications, such as text documents, spreadsheets and presentations.

2.      Records in online or Web-based environments, such as intranet, extranets and records of online transactions.

3.      Records generated by business information systems, such as databases, geospatial data systems, human resource systems, financial systems, workflow systems and content management systems.

4.      Digital communication systems, such as e-mail, short messaging services, multimedia messaging services, electronic data interchange and electronic fax.

He also added the outline for the best practices of the electronic records management and the most extensively discussed one has been ISO 15489 which was initially published in 2001 and was the first standard to address records management issues. In contrast a good personal are also needed to ensure that these records can be view effectively and depends on the person who handles it (Seitio-Kgokgwe, Gauld, Hill, & Barnett, 2014) stated that Effective HRM requires its strategic placement within health structures (Adano et al., 2008), accompanied by strong leadership. The need of electronic platform was also mention by (Lewis, Baxter, & Pouder, 2013)  electronic platform that monitored and managed the program and this platform would track all health-related activities per employee, manage and monitor all control mechanisms (incentives and disincentives) that would be established to shape healthy behaviors, educate users based on personal health issues identified through a personal health assessment, and address all of the backend transaction processing that is part of the claims administration process is referring to the importance of electronic health records.

CONCLUSION
            In conclusion the electronic medical records gives a lot of positive effect to the management of the hospital and also the personnel that work in the health organization, moreover it can help in providing the data with efficiency and effectively accurate and precise to which the information needed by the professional that works in the health organization sot electronic records in health organization are very crucial and important.


REFERENCE
Scotland, N. R. of. (2013, March ). Electronic records management systems. Retrieved November 15, 2016, from http://www.nas.gov.uk/recordKeeping/ERGuidance/ERMSystems.asp
Stanberry, K. (2011). US and global efforts to expand the use of electronic health records. Records Management Journal, 21(3), 214–224. doi:10.1108/0956569111118688
Riesenmy, K. R. (2010). Physician sensemaking and readiness for electronic medical records. , 17(2), 163–177. doi:10.1108/09696471011019871
Katuu, S. (2016). Managing digital records in a global environment. The Electronic Library, 34(5), 869–894. doi:10.1108/el-04-2015-0064
Katuu, S. (2016). Transforming South Africa’s health sector. Journal of Science and Technology Policy Management, 7(3), 330–345. doi:10.1108/jstpm-02-2016-0001
Sukumar, S. R., Natarajan, R., & Ferrell, R. K. (2015). Quality of big data in health care. International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, 28(6), 621–634. doi:10.1108/ijhcqa-07-2014-0080
Seitio-Kgokgwe, O., Gauld, R. D., Hill, P. C., & Barnett, P. (2014). Assessing performance of Botswana’s public hospital system: The use of the world health organization health system performance assessment framework. International Journal of Health Policy and Management, 3(4), 179–189. doi:10.15171/ijhpm.2014.85
Lewis, M., Baxter, R., & Pouder, R. (2013). The development and deploymentof electronic personal health records. Journal of Health Organization and Management, 27(5), 577–600. doi:10.1108/jhom-07-2012-0144
Narattharaksa, K. C., & Speece, M. (n.d.). Key success factors behind electronic medical record adoption in Thailand. SSRN Electronic Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.2619689

Baird, S., & Boak, G. (2016). Leading change: Introducing an electronic medical record system to a paramedic service. Leadership in Health Services, 29(2), 136–150. doi:10.1108/lhs-04-2015-0012

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This blog will act as a medium for the authors to spread the knowledge about Records Management for business organization and will also provide a brief details about institutions that provides the course of Records Management in Malaysia.The creation of this blog is to fulfilled requirement for the subject of Business Records Management (IMR652).Every posts are related to our coursework and field. Hopefully, it will help and guide those who seeks information about records management. This blog is also dedicated to our lecturer, Dr. Nurussobah Binti Hussin. We would be glad if you can follow this blog as it can contribute marks to us.