Thursday, April 8, 2010

Benefits of Paperless Record Systems in Hospitals

This following guest article was written by Richard Hemby who regularly writes about online health care degrees and other college related topics for Online College Guru, an online college degree guide

The Benefits of Paperless Record Systems in Hospitals

Bulky charts full of hand-written scribbles, test results and medication history are becoming a thing of the past in hospitals across the nation. Medical charting is undergoing an exciting transformation to digital record keeping that will change patient care for good.

Until now, finding critical medical documents could take several minutes or more thumbing through pages and pages of records. During an emergency, those precious minutes could mean the difference between life and death. Thanks to electronic paperless record systems, a physician can pull up information about a patient in just seconds. The ability to do so can drastically improve the quality of patient care and save lives.

With traditional paper charting, it can take several days for physicians, laboratories and hospitals to transcribe and exchange exam notes and test results. This can cause a serious delay in proper medical care for patients. Paperless record systems allow all of the professionals treating a patient to quickly and efficiently exchange information.

Laptop and desktop computers hosting electronic record keeping software will soon replace overstuffed patient charts. Not only is this move fantastic for the future of healthcare, it makes great business sense for hospitals as well. Providing a higher level of patient care and faster service translates to happier patients and fewer medical errors and malpractice lawsuits. Having electronic medical records also frees up much needed space that has traditionally been devoted to storing an ever-growing library of paper charts.

President Barack Obama hopes to convert all paper charting to digital by the year 2014. In an effort to make this happen, the U.S. Government is offering $19 billion in stimulus money to help hospitals with the cost of transitioning to digital record systems. President Obama believes that the transition to paperless record systems will make the U.S. health care system safer, more efficient and will reduce overall health care costs.

While the initial cost of implementing a paperless system can be very steep, electronic record keeping is more cost effective than paper records in the long run. When all new records are written electronically and all old records have been scanned into the system, the cost of storing paper records and paying workers to organize, file and maintain them will be eliminated. This equals huge long-term savings for hospitals. Electronic record keeping can be intimidating at first, but the benefits that paperless record systems offer greatly outweigh the upfront cost.

The Benefits of Paperless Record Systems in Hospitals

This following guest article was written by Richard Hemby who regularly writes about online health care degrees and other college related topics for Online College Guru, an online college degree guide

Bulky charts full of hand-written scribbles, test results and medication history are becoming a thing of the past in hospitals across the nation. Medical charting is undergoing an exciting transformation to digital record keeping that will change patient care for good.

Until now, finding critical medical documents could take several minutes or more thumbing through pages and pages of records. During an emergency, those precious minutes could mean the difference between life and death. Thanks to electronic paperless record systems, a physician can pull up information about a patient in just seconds. The ability to do so can drastically improve the quality of patient care and save lives.

With traditional paper charting, it can take several days for physicians, laboratories and hospitals to transcribe and exchange exam notes and test results. This can cause a serious delay in proper medical care for patients. Paperless record systems allow all of the professionals treating a patient to quickly and efficiently exchange information.

Laptop and desktop computers hosting electronic record keeping software will soon replace overstuffed patient charts. Not only is this move fantastic for the future of healthcare, it makes great business sense for hospitals as well. Providing a higher level of patient care and faster service translates to happier patients and fewer medical errors and malpractice lawsuits. Having electronic medical records also frees up much needed space that has traditionally been devoted to storing an ever-growing library of paper charts.

President Barack Obama hopes to convert all paper charting to digital by the year 2014. In an effort to make this happen, the U.S. Government is offering $19 billion in stimulus money to help hospitals with the cost of transitioning to digital record systems. President Obama believes that the transition to paperless record systems will make the U.S. health care system safer, more efficient and will reduce overall health care costs.

While the initial cost of implementing a paperless system can be very steep, electronic record keeping is more cost effective than paper records in the long run. When all new records are written electronically and all old records have been scanned into the system, the cost of storing paper records and paying workers to organize, file and maintain them will be eliminated. This equals huge long-term savings for hospitals. Electronic record keeping can be intimidating at first, but the benefits that paperless record systems offer greatly outweigh the upfront cost.

7 comments:

Ray Hutchins said...

The whole EHR debate is a critical one for our nation and I'm glad to see what you had to say about it.

It is increasingly accepted that ontologies are valuable for data mapping that correlates data from disparate sources. Data disparity is endemic to EMR/EHR due to different systems storing the same data differently.

Finding a company that understands and uses ontologies is not easy. I am aware of a company that has made a significant break-thru with respect to ontological engineering and disease control that is worth note.

It's a small privately held SaaS development company based in Colorado that has developed and deployed an ontologically-based, GIS integrated disease management decision support system in Africa to fight malaria. This is a significant system that was funded by the global combatants of this disease and the system can be rapidly customized for deployment to other disease environments…especially if you are talking about vector-borne disease.

The company, TerraFrame TerraFrame is interested in leveraging its technology to fight global diseases or other problems requiring better decision support systems and is happy to entertain creative conversations to that effect.

For more information please contact Ray Hutchins at rh@terraframe.co

Anonymous said...

No doubt paperless records are going to be a great benefit to all healthcare professionals as well as patients, but how will this information be secured? Looking through meaningful use, I see that all patient data needs to be encrypted, but it also must be tracked and guaranteed to not have been tampered with while in-transit. Will EHRs be able to comply with these objectives?

Anonymous said...

No doubt paperless records are going to be a great benefit to all healthcare professionals as well as patients, but how will this information be secured? Looking through meaningful use, I see that all patient data needs to be encrypted, but it also must be tracked and guaranteed to not have been tampered with while in-transit. Will EHRs be able to comply with these objectives?

Anonymous said...

The electronic exchange of information will without a doubt benefit all healthcare professionals as well as patients, but how will all this data be secured when it is sent over the network? Meaningful use discusses many objectives that go beyond the localization of the electronic medical record and discusses the transmission of patient data as being a significant piece of meaningful use compliance. Those who adopt EHR systems will need to be able to connect to any other system on the network, encrypt all data sent, and guarantee it has not been altered along its path. How will professionals and EHR vendors meet these objectives in a simple and cost-effective way?

Anonymous said...

No doubt paperless records are going to be a great benefit to all healthcare professionals as well as patients, but how will this information be secured? Looking through meaningful use, I see that all patient data needs to be encrypted, but it also must be tracked and guaranteed to not have been tampered with while in-transit. Will EHRs be able to comply with these objectives?

KrishaLiva said...

EMR saved an incredible amount of money in office supplies and wasted time. I would gladly recommend A.I.med to any physicians to go paperless..It has thoroughly changed the office flow and eliminated the time wasted dealing with paper records. electronic medical records will not just change the way medical providers work in hospitals and doctors’ offices, they will improve the quality of care and reduce costs.

KrishaLiva said...

I think electronic health records will lead to betterment and advancement of health care..It helps us gather huge amounts of data,accelerate the creation of results oriented information and health records completely paper-free.
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Krisha
ehr software | family practice emr