Electronic Health Records and Meaningful Use
In an article published by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, entitled, “Electronic Health Records and Meaningful Use,” there are a number of benefits associated with electronic health records for both the providers and their patients. This is especially true when it comes to improving the quality of care and delivering functionality that paper medical records just cannot provide.
Improved Quality of Care
The article first noted some key benefits that both providers and their patients could enjoy. These included:
- Complete and accurate information. Having the most complete and accurate information means that providers can make more informed decisions and deliver enhanced care.
- Enhanced access to information. Getting access to information needed to diagnose health issues or medical problems sooner means that a patient can be on the road to recovery quickly. If the patient has to deal with different health systems, providers, and offices, the enhanced access through an electronic records network means that care can also be more effectively coordinated.
- Patient empowerment. Having access to health records means that patients can become more involved in their health and that of their families.
Greater Functionality Offered by Electronic Health Records
The article also pointed out a number of ways that the electronic records had greater functionality than that of paper-based systems. The enhanced functionality included:
- Instead of having to wait for a patient’s chart, electronic systems speed the information to providers.
- Instead of having to rely on many different versions and formats for health records, there is one consistent and coordinated way that the health and medical information is offered.
- Instead of slowing down any follow-up information for reminders or further care, the information is available, updated, and can be set to offer automatic reminders of key dates for follow-up appointments.
- Instead of having to wait for prescriptions or for insurance claims to be filed, patients can receive their prescriptions faster while insurance claims can be immediately filed from the provider’s office.
Meaningful Use Tied to Legislation and Regulations
The article also discussed how legislation and regulation is shaping meaningful use of health records and medical information. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act allows for “eligible health care professionals and hospitals to qualify for Medicare and Medicaid incentive payments when they adopt certified EHR technology and use it to achieve specified objectives.”
As the article stated, “Two regulations have been released, one of which defines the “meaningful use” objectives that providers must meet to qualify for the bonus payments, and the other which identifies the technical capabilities required for certified EHR technology.” This is a means to get more medical offices and healthcare facilities to adopt electronic processes to help leverage the available benefits mentioned here.
In Review
To summarize this article:
- Patients and providers can enjoy enhanced care by using electronic processes because decisions about care can be made quickly thanks to accurate, complete, and standardized information.
- Greater functionality is offered by electronic processes over paper-based health records in terms of speed, accuracy, ease of use and transactions between various stakeholders in the process.
- HITECH was enacted to create meaningful use of the electronic process by offering key incentives to migrate more providers to the electronic-based processes for health records.
Fig Gungor is CEO of OneSource Document Management, a New York based company that offers a broad range of customized copy and scanning services that translate into a significant savings for insurance companies, hospitals and large medical facilities.