EHR

Check Your Medical Records For Dangerous Errors

When Liz Tidyman’s elderly parents moved across the country to be closer to their children and grandchildren years ago, they carried their medical records with them in a couple of brown cardboard folders tied with string.

Two days after their arrival, Tidyman’s father fell, which hadn’t happened before, and went to a hospital for an evaluation.

Hospital IQR-Promoting Interoperability Program Alignment Outreach and Education Webinar on September 26, 2018: FY 2019 IPPS/LTCH PPS Final Rule: Overview of eCQM Reporting and Promoting Interoperability Programs

This Outreach and Education webinar for participants in the Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting (IQR) Program and the Medicare and Medicaid Promoting Interoperability Programs (previously known as the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Record Incentive Programs) is scheduled for Wednesday, September 26, 2018.

Report Available on Ensuring the Safety and Effectiveness of Laboratory Data in Electronic Health Record Systems

Electronic health record (EHR) systems can improve patient care by making it easier to collect, share, and interpret patient data. However, variations in EHR system design, functionality, and ability to exchange data accurately (interoperability) can cause preventable patient safety risks. The Clinical Laboratory Improvement Advisory Committee (CLIAC) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has raised concerns regarding the usability and interoperability of laboratory data in EHR systems. In response, in July 2012, CDC convened the Communication in Informatics Workgroup.

The ONC Guide to Getting & Using Your Health Records!

You have a right to your health record

According to federal law, you have a right to see and get a copy of your health record from most health insurance plans and health care providers, including clinics, hospitals, pharmacies, labs, and nursing homes.

Yet it can be a real challenge to get your health record if you’ve been cared for by multiple doctors in multiple places. Each one may have a different process for asking for and getting your record.

The EHRA updates their code of conduct - Here is the section about Usability

Established in 2004, the Electronic Health Record (EHR) Association is comprised of companies that supply the vast majority of operational EHRs to physicians’ practices and hospitals across the United States. The EHR Association operates on the premise that the rapid, widespread adoption of EHRs will, as a key enabler of healthcare transformation, help improve the quality of patient care as well as the productivity and sustainability of our healthcare system.

Usability in Healthcare impacts Patient Safety

“There is overwhelming evidence that usability of health IT systems impacts patient safety, and is crucial to adoption and effective use. There is a common misunderstanding that usability is only about basic screen design such as font size, color, and layout, but a better understanding is that usability needs to support the needs of clinicians of patients,”

- Raj Ratwani, Ph.D., scientific director at the National Center for Human Factors in Healthcare at the Washington D.C.-based MedStar Health.

Targeting EHR Workarounds

Many in the health IT sector and the health professional community view electronic health records as both a blessing and a curse. EHRs have significantly improved documentation and dissemination of patients' clinical information, streamlined certain tasks and improved safety in areas such as medication management. But EHRs also have made some aspects of health care providers' workload more time consuming than in the "paper" days and sometimes compromise patient safety.

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