Current State Evaluation
Electronic Medical Record
In the early 1990s the Institute of Medicine (IOM) started lobbying the health care community to consider embracing the use of the electronic medical record (EMR) as standard practice (Haupt, 2011). IOM’s premise for EMR usage included improve health care by increasing safety and efficiency thereby promoting overall better quality of care. Initially, health care systems were excited about the idea of having patient’s information readily available via computer software and applications however apprehension resided in the allocation of resources such as time and cost associated with the transition from paper to electronic record. Electronic documentation within health care started mainly with coding and billing, but now have extending to computerized physician order entry (CPOE), ordering prescription, and communication between different departments as well as the providers and patient (Haupt, 2011). Presently EMR, EHR, and patient portals (PP) are systems that combine medical data along with patients’ …show more content…
The VA is the largest integrated health system within the United States and to reach their enormous patient population it needed to adopt virtual health care in the form of telemedicine and telehealth (Heart, Ben-Assuli, & Shabtai, 2017). Telehealth provides health care by using data and communicative technology to reduce costs, enhance efficiency and accessibility to health care (Wade, Karnon, Elshaug, & Hiller, 2010). In fiscal year 2013 the VA provided Veterans with 1,793,496 telemedicine or telehealth appointments (Darkins, 2014). In addition, the VA has a total of six areas of telemedicine including: clinical video telehealth (CVT), Home Telehealth (HT), Store and Forward Telehealth, Teleradiology, Secure Messaging, and Mobile Health (Darkins, 2014). For the purpose of this paper, home telehealth is the service being
Electronic Medical Record
In the early 1990s the Institute of Medicine (IOM) started lobbying the health care community to consider embracing the use of the electronic medical record (EMR) as standard practice (Haupt, 2011). IOM’s premise for EMR usage included improve health care by increasing safety and efficiency thereby promoting overall better quality of care. Initially, health care systems were excited about the idea of having patient’s information readily available via computer software and applications however apprehension resided in the allocation of resources such as time and cost associated with the transition from paper to electronic record. Electronic documentation within health care started mainly with coding and billing, but now have extending to computerized physician order entry (CPOE), ordering prescription, and communication between different departments as well as the providers and patient (Haupt, 2011). Presently EMR, EHR, and patient portals (PP) are systems that combine medical data along with patients’ …show more content…
The VA is the largest integrated health system within the United States and to reach their enormous patient population it needed to adopt virtual health care in the form of telemedicine and telehealth (Heart, Ben-Assuli, & Shabtai, 2017). Telehealth provides health care by using data and communicative technology to reduce costs, enhance efficiency and accessibility to health care (Wade, Karnon, Elshaug, & Hiller, 2010). In fiscal year 2013 the VA provided Veterans with 1,793,496 telemedicine or telehealth appointments (Darkins, 2014). In addition, the VA has a total of six areas of telemedicine including: clinical video telehealth (CVT), Home Telehealth (HT), Store and Forward Telehealth, Teleradiology, Secure Messaging, and Mobile Health (Darkins, 2014). For the purpose of this paper, home telehealth is the service being