Nursing Article: EMR in nursing

The advantages, disadvantages and the strategies for appropriate use, patient’s safety and quality of care in the use of  Electronic Medical Records (EMR) by nurses

This poster shows the advantages, disadvantages as well as the strategies to ensure appropriate use, patient’s safety and quality care in the use of Electronic Medical Records (EMR) in hospitals by nurses in hospitals.

There is no doubt that the health care systems around the world are continuously progressing towards technological implementations in their field in order to better improve the quality of care provided to patients. EMR Nevertheless, there are various advantages and disadvantages in the use of EMR in healthcare institutions.

Advantages	Disadvantages	Risks to Patient Safety & Quality of Care
Faster information storing and sharing		There are redundant information along the saved data in the system with propagation of false information (Warner and Wiedemane 2012)
Preserves confidentiality of information		Legal liability may arise as information can be copied and shared (Warner & Wiedeman 2012)
Effective medication administration
Documentations and patients portals are easier to access, compare and follow up among healthcare administrations (Futrell 2018)	Insufficient communication results in poor information gathering and storing (Berry, Campbell, Flanigan, Paulson, Ryznar, Woebkenberg, 2015)	Risky documentation practices like prefilled Word documents for bariatric evaluation, changing only the patient’s name and printing it out (Warner and Wiedeman 2012)
Robotic Surgeries are much more quicker in duration, faster recovery period and less complication  (Gill & Randell, 2017)	Lack of teamwork among OR team of anaesthetist, surgeons and nurses posing threat to patients intraoperatively (ill & Randell, 2017)
Able to monitor and interpret changes in patient care through charts in order to improve quality of care given to patients (Reynolds & Granger, 2019)		The copying functionality of EMR’s could be misleading (Warner & Wiedemann 2012)
Disease Registry of population can be traced and studied to improve chronic and preventive care (Futrell 2018)		Inaccurate and outdated information about patient (Warner & Wiedemann 2012)
Telehealth and mobile healthcare applications provides easier access and mobility for both patients and healthcare providers (Futrell 2018)		Improper payments and false copied billing information may casue overpayments by patients (Warner & Wiedemann 2012)
Intraoperatively, instruments and sets used in the OR for a specific surgery can be traced back through T-DOC scanning of barcodes

Strategies

The usage of Electronic Medical Records (EMR) is evolving in the healthcare field. It possess various advantages and pose disadvantages in many ways. However, there are steps that can be taken to ensure a better improved outcome in its usage. Firstly, Futrell (2018) suggests that one way to enhance patient care through EMR is by involving laboratories. Since laboratory professionals have an in depth understanding of the laboratory orders and results, it’s tremendously help if laboratory professionals indicate the need for specific care required for a patient based on their laboratory results or specific disease alert so that healthcare team members can take action promptly and are able to avoid unnecessary admissions and length of stay thus contributing to large savings.

Besides that, secondly, another key strategy that can be implemented in order to improve the the quality of care and patient’s safety would be training. In fact, healthcare institutions globally are constantly finding new ways in providing comprehensive training for their employees because effective trainings equips employees with the necessary knowledge and skills required for a better understanding of health information systems (Berry, Campbell, Flanigan, Paulson, Ryznar, Woebkenberg, 2018).    

                   Moreover, thirdly, the use of EMR evidently shows high risks in patient information leakage and propagation that may adversely affect the care and treatment of patient and consequently their life. Therefore, one other strategy suggestion would be for organisations and institutions to develop and install policies that’s vital for the efficient management of health data records and information such as copy functionalities that doesn’t meet integrity policies that should be eradicated (Waner & Wiedeman, 2012). On the other hand, fourthly, policies on document support for medical necessity of service for proper billing and payments by patients should be implemented to prevent unnecessary overpayments.

Furthermore, fifthly, in another study, Warner and Wiedeman (2012) also believes that organization must also ensure there is a specific body of council on the ground to take the lead and be involved in the design of template documentation and systematic workflow for proper documentation so that there is compliance with payer, government and institution policies in copy functionality.

Besides that, sixthly, audits should be done regularly in an organization to ensure the copy functionality is monitored and used appropriately by healthcare staff (Warner & Wiedeman 2012). Utilizing their staff at hand to review orders and report document duplication routinely also may help tremendously is curbing the false documentation errors (Warner & Wiedeman 2012).

Seventhly, testing downtime procedures after system upgrades should also be implemented routinely by healthcare organization in order for patient’s information to be backed-up when there are scheduled or unscheduled downtimes with the EMR system (Berry, Campbell, Flanigan, Paulson, Ryznar & Woebkenberg 2019)

By Jessica John Posko💗