Electronic health record

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Revision as of 14:37, 1 November 2007 by imported>Robert Badgett (→‎Interoperability)
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The electronic health record (EHR) is defined as a "computer-based systems for input, storage, display, retrieval, and printing of information contained in a patient's medical record."[1] In the future it is hoped that EHRs across different health care systems will be able to exchange patient information in regional health information organizations (RHIOs); however, this goal has been elusive.[2]

Features

Computerized provider order entry (CPOE)

CPOE is defined as "information systems, usually computer-assisted, that enable providers to initiate medical procedures, prescribe medications, etc. These systems support medical decision-making and error-reduction during patient care."[3]

CPOE is one of the four recommendations by the Leapfrog Group.[4]

Interoperability

Ideally, patient data should be able to be transferred accross different EHRs as patients move accross health care systems. Networked EHRs are call to a health information exchange (HIE) or regional health information organization (RHIO).

In 1999 the Santa Barbara County Care Data Exchange was funded in order to be HIE demonstration project.[2] By fall 2006, two organizations within the HIE were able to exchange some information. However, in December 2006 the project's board decided to close the project due to funding problems.

Other RHIOs include The Indiana network for patient care[5][6], the Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative[7], and Inland Northwest Health Services (Spokane)[8]

Uses

Clinical care

Successful implementations

The United States Department of Veterans Affairs has successfully implemented an electronic health record system, "VistA", across a very large health care system.[9][10]

Failed implementations

  • Kaiser - Hawaii[11]
  • Limpopo (Northern) Province, South Africa[12]

Adverse effects

Most all of the adverse effects are due to just the computerized provider order entry component of the electronic medical record.

Implementation of the computerized provider order entry has been associated with medication errors[13] This may be due to computer interfaces that are not intuitive to use.[14]

Computerized provider order entry has been associated with causing a number of unintended consequences with "new work/more work, workflow, system demands, communication, emotions, and dependence on the technology" being most severe.[15] In this study, shifts in power ("The presence of a system that enforces specific clinical practices through mandatory data entry fields changes the power structure of organizations. Often the power or autonomy of physicians is reduced, while the power of the nursing staff, information technology specialists, and administration is increased") were also observed.

The introduction of computerized provider order entry has been associated with increased hospital mortality in some[16], but not all studies.[17][18]

Quality management

Research

The electronic health record can provide data for health research. One issue is protecting the privacy of patients.[19][20]

References

  1. National Library of Medicine. MeSH Descriptor Data. Retrieved on 2007-10-23.
  2. 2.0 2.1 Miller RH, Miller BS (2007). "The Santa Barbara County Care Data Exchange: what happened?". Health affairs (Project Hope) 26 (5): w568–80. DOI:10.1377/hlthaff.26.5.w568. PMID 17670775. Research Blogging. Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; name "pmid17670775" defined multiple times with different content
  3. Medical Order Entry Systems. \aurhot=National Library of Medicine. Retrieved on 2007-11-01.
  4. The Leapfrog Group Fact Sheet. Retrieved on 2007-11-01.
  5. Foundation for eHealth Initiative. Indiana Health Information Exchange (Indiana Health Information Exchange). Retrieved on 2007-11-01.
  6. McDonald CJ, Overhage JM, Barnes M, et al (2005). "The Indiana network for patient care: a working local health information infrastructure. An example of a working infrastructure collaboration that links data from five health systems and hundreds of millions of entries". Health affairs (Project Hope) 24 (5): 1214–20. DOI:10.1377/hlthaff.24.5.1214. PMID 16162565. Research Blogging.
  7. Foundation for eHealth Initiative. Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative (Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative). Retrieved on 2007-11-01.
  8. Foundation for eHealth Initiative. Inland Northwest Health Services(Inland Northwest Health Services). Retrieved on 2007-11-01.
  9. Brown SH, Lincoln MJ, Groen PJ, Kolodner RM (2003). "VistA--U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs national-scale HIS". International journal of medical informatics 69 (2-3): 135–56. PMID 12810119[e]
  10. Fletcher RD, Dayhoff RE, Wu CM, Graves A, Jones RE (2001). "Computerized medical records in the Department of Veterans Affairs". Cancer 91 (8 Suppl): 1603–6. PMID 11309758[e]
  11. Scott JT, Rundall TG, Vogt TM, Hsu J (2005). "Kaiser Permanente's experience of implementing an electronic medical record: a qualitative study". BMJ 331 (7528): 1313–6. DOI:10.1136/bmj.38638.497477.68. PMID 16269467. Research Blogging.
  12. Littlejohns P, Wyatt JC, Garvican L (2003). "Evaluating computerised health information systems: hard lessons still to be learnt". BMJ 326 (7394): 860–3. DOI:10.1136/bmj.326.7394.860. PMID 12702622. Research Blogging.
  13. Koppel R, Metlay JP, Cohen A, et al (2005). "Role of computerized physician order entry systems in facilitating medication errors". JAMA 293 (10): 1197–203. DOI:10.1001/jama.293.10.1197. PMID 15755942. Research Blogging.
  14. Nielsen, Jakob (April 11, 2005). Medical Usability: How to Kill Patients Through Bad Design (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox). Retrieved on 2007-10-23.
  15. Ash JS, Sittig DF, Poon EG, Guappone K, Campbell E, Dykstra RH (2007). "The extent and importance of unintended consequences related to computerized provider order entry". Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA 14 (4): 415–23. DOI:10.1197/jamia.M2373. PMID 17460127. Research Blogging.
  16. Han YY, Carcillo JA, Venkataraman ST, et al (2005). "Unexpected increased mortality after implementation of a commercially sold computerized physician order entry system". Pediatrics 116 (6): 1506–12. DOI:10.1542/peds.2005-1287. PMID 16322178. Research Blogging.
  17. Keene A, Ashton L, Shure D, Napoleone D, Katyal C, Bellin E (2007). "Mortality before and after initiation of a computerized physician order entry system in a critically ill pediatric population". Pediatric critical care medicine : a journal of the Society of Critical Care Medicine and the World Federation of Pediatric Intensive and Critical Care Societies 8 (3): 268–71. DOI:10.1097/01.PCC.0000260781.78277.D9. PMID 17417119. Research Blogging.
  18. Del Beccaro MA, Jeffries HE, Eisenberg MA, Harry ED (2006). "Computerized provider order entry implementation: no association with increased mortality rates in an intensive care unit". Pediatrics 118 (1): 290–5. DOI:10.1542/peds.2006-0367. PMID 16818577. Research Blogging.
  19. Uzuner O, Luo Y, Szolovits P (2007). "Evaluating the state-of-the-art in automatic de-identification". Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA 14 (5): 550–63. DOI:10.1197/jamia.M2444. PMID 17600094. Research Blogging.
  20. Szarvas G, Farkas R, Busa-Fekete R (2007). "State-of-the-art anonymization of medical records using an iterative machine learning framework". Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA 14 (5): 574–80. DOI:10.1197/j.jamia.M2441. PMID 17823086. Research Blogging.

See also

External links