Electronic Medical Records: A Case Study

The advantage of electronic charting includes enhancements in patient safety, error reduction, standardized patient care, and accessibility of the chart to provide universal access of health care information across multidisciplinary teams. Physician order entry provides clinical alerts, reminders, and protocol-driven order sets. There is no longer a need to expend time searching for a chart or attempting to decipher orders. The Electronic Medical Record, better known as the EMR, has many benefits as well as limitations.
The barriers to computer charting found from personal experience come from a time standpoint. Unfortunately, there is extra time spent in the EMRs. Per HIPPA guidelines, the patient chart has to be closed if not directly in front of the screen. In being …show more content…
A possible solution is to add fingerprint recognition to every computer in which the computer automatically opens up once activated. There are massive amounts of duplicate entries and incorrect orders that require correction. The solution to this problem is limiting selection choices for physicians, revising power plans and sending an alert if orders are entered more than once in a particular time frame. The computer system is very slow and loses connectivity frequently. Much time is allocated to making the machine work properly and sync with the wireless connection. Suggestion is to boost the current network signal. This way there is no loss of connection from one room to the next. Orders do not necessarily flow over to the work lists in a timely fashion, creating a lag in response. Lab results take a while to become available in the chart once complete. The delay can be quite long until it is visible. ABG’s are completed by RT on the iStat, and they immediately result on the machine, but again a significant delay in showing up in the record. There is more time concentrated with double and triple checking orders to ensure the patient is well