Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | M | Managed Healthcare Executive

Integration and prioritized data essential for EHRs: an optimal electronic health record contains data from several sources and needs to be all things to all people.

Article Excerpt
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

AN EMERGENCY ROOM DOCTOR doesn't need to know a hemorrhaging patient is due for a flu shot. The discharge nurse doesn't need to know the patient's father has high blood pressure. A family physician, however, might want to know all of the above. Electronic health records (EHR) can contain reams of information, but sifting through that data to find relevant information clinicians need at specific times can counteract much of an electronic system's time savings.

"It could be a serious problem," says Jim Walker, MD, chief health information officer at Geisinger Health System in Danville, Pa. "There is almost no discussion nationally about how EHRs should be integrated with how nurses, care givers and doctors work."

While experts agree that electronic records in any form save time and increase patient safety, how EHRs are implemented and integrated can make all the difference.

"The data has to be presented in a way that doesn't overload physicians and nurses," says Andrew Ury, vice chair of the...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!