EHR System Benefits Analysis

Introduction

Growth in technology has rendered to changes in the healthcare sector. Most of the operations within the healthcare institutions have been eased through the use of electronic gadgets. The health information management department is benefitting from the use of the Electronic Health Records (EHR). The chair of the intradepartmental Clinical Information System Committee of a hospital is supposed to form a committee to discharge the task of analyzing the benefits of implementing the EHR system. The EHR benefits are based on both the health care providers and the patients. The committee is responsible for developing the criteria for sending the Request For Proposal (RFP).

The committee for analyzing the benefits for EHR in the hospital should include all the leaders within the HIM department and a representative from areas such as, health information management, information systems, and the ancillary department such as a pharmacist. The pharmacist’s work is to give the prescribed medication to the patient, and he/she is responsible for recording the medication given to the patients (Broom et al., 2015). Therefore, the presence of a pharmacist will be to represent how the pharmacy section of the hospital will benefit from the implementation of the EHR system in the hospital. The possible two vendors for the EHR system include the Epic systems and Allscripts as they have been regarded as the most trusted vendors (Holmgren, Adler-Milstein, & McCullough, 2017).

The project is expected to take a period of 3 months. The three months will involve the project team going for field work in other hospitals that have already implemented the EHR system. The committee members will be meeting every Friday of the week to discuss the matters arising as well as the collected data that will enable them to conclude whether to purchase the EHR systems for the hospital. Also, the committee will be required to write the Request For Proposal (RFP). The follow-up for the assignment will be conducted by the hospital CEO who will be analyzing the progress of the work.

The needs of the EHR within the hospital include the process of adoption by changing the culture and providing value (Hicks, et al., 2016). Implementing the EHR system within a hospital requires the health IT leaders as well as the staff partners to implement the strategies for adapting to the new culture. The process of adoption requires the staffs working with patient records to be versant with the use of the computer. Also, other health care providers including the physicians, clinicians, and the nurses should be computer literate to enhance quick adoption of the HER system. Another need that may arise is transferring the available records from paperwork to the computers after the installation of the digital system within the hospital.

The EHR system poses benefits to the healthcare providers. One of the benefits includes document management such as in a case where a patient is taken care of by several doctors, tracking the history becomes more comfortable as compared to the paperwork record. The healthcare providers can access the health records of the patient from any computer within the healthcare facility, hence, making it easier for the physicians to take care of the patient. Another benefit is increased efficiency and productivity where communication is enhanced. Communication between the diagnostic centers, pharmacies, the insurance providers, and the clinicians is improved. It is usually a tedious work to produce copies of a patient’s health records to all the required stakeholder; therefore, the EHR will help solve this issue.  Also, medical errors are reduced since there is computerized data entry where the physician or other healthcare workers are overcome with the burden of paperwork (Han et al., 2016).  The hospital may benefit from reduced workers who work within the department as the digital gadgets will ease the work.

One of the benefits of EHR to patients is that the patients’ health records contain minimal errors as compared to the paperwork. The paperwork has for a long time been associated with errors and loss as they are prone to lose. The EHR enhances communication among physicians where each party can have full access to the patient’s health records. This enables the physicians to conduct a more in-depth evaluation as well as enabling the rest of caregivers to access information regarding the health of the patient to enhance proper care. The electronic health records also save time during a doctor’s office visit as the doctor can quickly retrieve the health records from the computer. Therefore, the EHR system does not only aid benefits to the healthcare providers, but also to patients.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the implementation of EHR system requires the chair of the HIM department to have a committee. The committee will discuss the benefits of implementing the system as well as the needs of the system and finally the procedure for sending an RFP. The implementation of the EHR provides benefits to both the patients and the healthcare providers. One of the significant advantages is reducing paperwork that is prone to lose or uses an ample space for storage. Another benefit is the easy access to the patient’s health records at any place within the hospital, thus, rendering to improved quality of care.