EHR Case Study

The usage, integration and inter-operability of EHR has been a focus with the ACA and the HITECH Act. With the inter-operability of UPFD’s EHR patients will receive better coordinated care as all providers will have access to the patients’ medical records and history regardless of the facility they went to. This exchange of information between providers and physicians allows costs for patient care to de reduced as providers won’t have to repeat tests or imaging, which reduces waste and redundancy in healthcare expenditures. Patients would have the opportunity and convenience to utilize any of the health system facilities as their information would be accessible from any of the competitor facilities. Although costly the federal government provides federal dollars for implementation and inter-operability. EHR integration and usage help to decrease the problems with paper records (storage, size, exchange of information, and decrease medical errors). Not only will there be cost savings from reduced waste and redundancy, having medical information saved in one place and exchanged between providers, patient will have improved satisfaction as they are not repeating the same tests or conversations with providers, and they can focus on other …show more content…
These systems and modifications often have large capital investments at the start. EHR carry the inherent risk of cybersecurity and HIPAA, that always need to be monitored and ensured for compliance and to prevent any data breeches. Funding for maintenance, protection, and expedition of access and integration must added on a continuous basis to prevent any adverse effects or hacking. Patient poaching becomes much easier as competitor organizations have expanded access to patient information, and the patient can visit the competitor facility without needed to obtain their records and have them sent to the competitor