Electronic Records Annotated Bibliography
Electronic Medical/Health Records (EMRs/EHRs) are the digital format of the paper chart which are used to record and collect data about the patient’s medical history. EMRs are mostly used to treat and diagnose patients. In Canada EMRs are an expensive medical software which physicians need to purchase. However, apart from the drawback, EMRs can accurately store data and indicate the long term changes of the patient. The main goal of EMRs is to allow physicians to easily access patient information quickly and efficiently.
The annotated bibliography will include detailed research based articles that will discuss the usage of EMR in Canada. The annotated bibliography will outline the cost, limitations …show more content…
discuss the financial and non-financial costs of implementing an electronic health record. Non-financial costs are basically time and other factors that are not related to actual funding, such as stress and learning to actually use the program. This is a relevant article as they actually discuss the financial costs of implementing EHR and put numbers to them, albeit they are American dollars in the year 2011 but nonetheless relevant. The article proclaims that for an average practice of five physicians in a clinic (and 26 primary care practices from north Texas taken into consideration), the implementation cost is an estimate $162,000 and $85,000 in maintenance fees throughout the first year. They were also able to estimate that the team that implements the EHR systems into place need about 611 hours to actually implement and prepare for the system. It will also take about 134 hours per each user to prepare for the system – meaning physicians, clinical and non-clinical staff. Another interesting piece of information to be pointed out is that in 2008 only 41.5% of office based physicians actually used partial or full ambulatory EHRs in their actual practices. This is a very poor number, because if thought about that means that 68.5% of physicians did not input information into any sort of electronic method and only 13-17% of physicians actually used a basic electronic record system. The authors indicate that those who have not yet adopted an electronic health record also frequently provide reasons as to why they have not yet taken the system in yet, and some of those reasons include high start-up costs, concern that a system would eventually go obsolete, lack of capital and gaining their lost funds back. This American article is very relevant to our research in Canada as it proves some of the reasons why doctors are not implementing EHRs, and what the costs exactly are if they should do so. Even though the article is American it would
Electronic Medical/Health Records (EMRs/EHRs) are the digital format of the paper chart which are used to record and collect data about the patient’s medical history. EMRs are mostly used to treat and diagnose patients. In Canada EMRs are an expensive medical software which physicians need to purchase. However, apart from the drawback, EMRs can accurately store data and indicate the long term changes of the patient. The main goal of EMRs is to allow physicians to easily access patient information quickly and efficiently.
The annotated bibliography will include detailed research based articles that will discuss the usage of EMR in Canada. The annotated bibliography will outline the cost, limitations …show more content…
discuss the financial and non-financial costs of implementing an electronic health record. Non-financial costs are basically time and other factors that are not related to actual funding, such as stress and learning to actually use the program. This is a relevant article as they actually discuss the financial costs of implementing EHR and put numbers to them, albeit they are American dollars in the year 2011 but nonetheless relevant. The article proclaims that for an average practice of five physicians in a clinic (and 26 primary care practices from north Texas taken into consideration), the implementation cost is an estimate $162,000 and $85,000 in maintenance fees throughout the first year. They were also able to estimate that the team that implements the EHR systems into place need about 611 hours to actually implement and prepare for the system. It will also take about 134 hours per each user to prepare for the system – meaning physicians, clinical and non-clinical staff. Another interesting piece of information to be pointed out is that in 2008 only 41.5% of office based physicians actually used partial or full ambulatory EHRs in their actual practices. This is a very poor number, because if thought about that means that 68.5% of physicians did not input information into any sort of electronic method and only 13-17% of physicians actually used a basic electronic record system. The authors indicate that those who have not yet adopted an electronic health record also frequently provide reasons as to why they have not yet taken the system in yet, and some of those reasons include high start-up costs, concern that a system would eventually go obsolete, lack of capital and gaining their lost funds back. This American article is very relevant to our research in Canada as it proves some of the reasons why doctors are not implementing EHRs, and what the costs exactly are if they should do so. Even though the article is American it would