Meeting With People who Utilize EHRs

Electronic Health Records and medical records play a vital role in hospitals today. With them, doctors and nurses are able to provide more efficient care and monitoring of their patients. In theory any.

Speaking with a close family friend, a U of A grad currently a doctor at the VA hospital in Tucson and has worked at other hospitals, EHRs and technology has really had a great impact on how hospitals and doctors operate. He talked about how the management of information has changed. Previously, doctors would have more time, or flexibility, between when they read a file and when they had to respond. With electronic records, the exact time he views the file is observed. This means he now has more accountability, yet it drastically reduces his daily flexibility. 

Although he lived his formative years back before cell phones and internet, he is by no means technologically inept. He actually was a part of the “team” responsible for trial-ing the new electronic health records when they made their way to Tucson hospitals. Issues he sees doctors running into is they’re afraid to embrace the technology, or that they aren’t technically savvy enough to utilize them. He joked about his time in med school, when students would have sore necks and shoulders because they had to carry their medical textbooks in their coats so that they were able to look up information quickly. He believes that when “my generation” (millennials about to leave school and join the real world) start moving into hospitals and the older guard begins to step down, that utilizing this information technology will be a lot more efficient. That is, he joked, the next generation comes along and brings new technology and ideas.


To summarize his opinions on Electronic Medical records: it is the future of patient care, and has incredible benefits; however there are still detractors and it is by no means a perfect system. Being able to share patient information seamlessly with different specialists they might see, or allow them to have greater control over their medical records and who is able to access them is immensely beneficial to how treatment is given. However, security risks with this information, confidentiality issues with how doctors treat patient information, and issues involving how these technologies are regulated by the government present major roadblocks.  

Comments

  1. Dr. Suzie WeisbandMay 6, 2017 at 4:12 PM

    This is helpful, but not sure what I learned from this VA doctor that we didn't already know. Very cool that he in on the ground floor! Yes, EHRs are required, so it is the future, even if every clinician and administrator would prefer to bury their heads in the sand. Medical records are seen by those who have access, as well as patients.

    More on these roadblocks.... Do you mean in its use or in new policies?

    ReplyDelete

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