Electronic Health Record Implementation
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the Electronic Health Record (HER) mandate, including its goals and objectives. It will further address how the Affordable Care Act and the Obama Administration connect with the mandate. The plan my facility used to meet the goals of the mandate, as well as what meaningful use is and our status of attaining it will be discussed. In addition, HIPAA laws, the dangers to patient confidentiality, and what my facility has done to prevent these will be presented.
Description of the Electronic Health Record (EHR) The EHR mandate was started by President George W. Bush on April 27, 2004 for making electronic health records used by most Americans by 2014 (Department of Health and Human Services, 2008). The National Coordinator for Health Information Technology was put in charge of making this happen and they enacted the Federal Health Information Technology Strategic Plan (Department of Health and Human Services, 2008). The goals of this plan include patient focused health care and population health (Department of Health and Human Services, 2008). The plan has four objectives to help them reach these two goals: privacy and security, interoperability, collaborative governance, and adoption. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was enacted to make healthcare affordable and easily available for all Americans (Department of Health and Human Services, 2014). A portion of the ACA focuses on health information
Although the EHR is still in a transitional state, this major shift that electronic medical records are taking is bringing many concerns to the table. Two concerns at the top of the list are privacy and standardization issues. In 1996, U.S. Congress enacted a non-for-profit organization called Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). This law establishes national standards for privacy and security of health information. HIPAA deals with information standards, data integrity, confidentiality, accessing and handling your medical information. They also were designed to guarantee transferred information be protected from one facility to the next (Meridan, 2007). But even with the HIPAA privacy rules, they too have their shortcomings. HIPAA can’t fully safeguard the limitations of who’s accessible to your information. A short stay at your local
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the electronic health record mandate. Who started it and when? I will discuss the goals of the mandate. I will discussion will how the Affordable Care Act ties into the mandate of Electronic Health Record. It will describe my own facility’s EHR and what steps are been taken to implement it. I will describe the term “meaningful use,” and it will discuss possible threats to patient confidentiality and the what’s being done by my facility to prevent Health Information and Portability Accountability Act or HIPAA violations.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is the new health care reform law in America, which is often called Obamacare. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a short for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). According to the Affordable Care Act summary, “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is made up of the Affordable Health Care for America Act, the Patient Protection Act, and the health care related sections of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act and the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act. It also includes amendments to other laws like the Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act and the Health and Public Services Act.”(2015). The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has made sure that access to health care is increased, and it
The purpose of this discussion board is to describe the Electronic Health Record (EHR), the six steps of an EHR and how my facility implements them, describe “meaningful use” and how my facility status is in obtaining it, and to further discuss the EHR’s and patient confidentiality.
Several years ago, a mandate was ordered requiring all healthcare facilities to progress from paper charting and record keeping to electronic health record (EHR). This transition to electronic formatting has pros and cons associated with it. I will be describing the EHR mandate, including who initiated it, when it was initiated, the goals of the EHR, and how the Affordable Care Act and the Obama administration are tied into it. Then I will show evidence of research and discuss the six steps of this process as well as my facilities progress with EHR. Then I will describe meaningful use and how my facility attained it. Finally, I will define HIPAA law, the possible threats to patient confidentiality relating to EHR, and how what my facility
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act made an investment in the year 2009 to encourage the adoption and implementation of the electronic health records (EHRs)(Cite). EHRs incentive payments were authorized through Medicare and Medicaid to clinicians and hospitals when they privately and securely used EHRs for achieving improvements in care delivery by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH). The healthcare organizations are expected to demonstrate meaningful use of EHRs. This rule of meaningful use has been implemented to strike a balance between acknowledging the urgency of adopting EHRs for improving the healthcare system and identifying the challenges that would be put forth
According to Medicaid.gov, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) provides Americans with better health security by putting in place comprehensive health insurance reforms that will, expand coverage, hold insurance companies accountable, lower health care costs, guarantee more access, and enhance the quality of care for all Americans.
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the ehr mandate and how it relates to affordable care act. The six steps in implementation of an electronic health record and how I would use them in the nursing home. The definition of what meaningful use is and what is HIPAA and what could happen if those laws were violated
Affordable Care Act (ACA), arguably the most comprehensive health care reform of the American medical system in several years. The act alters the scope of the uninsured in the United States, requires that most, if not all, residents have health insurance, expands public insurance and subsidizes private insurance coverage, generates additional revenue from new taxes, and reorganizes spending under the nation’s largest health insurance plan, Medicare. The ACA seeks to establish a drastically different health care model for the United States in the years to come, if fully implemented.
On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a law put in place to provide comprehensive health insurance reforms that allowed Americans to have access to affordable health insurance options. The Affordable Care Act seeks to make health care more affordable, secure, accessible and of a higher quality for the millions of Americans who were previously uninsured, or who had insurance that didn’t provide them adequate coverage and security.
An Electronic Health Record is a computerized form of a patient’s medical chart. These records allow information to be readily available to authorized providers during a patient’s encounter with the healthcare system. These systems do not only contain medical histories, current medications and insurance information, they also track patients’ diagnoses, treatment plans, immunization dates, allergies, radiology images and lab tests/results (source). The fundamental aspect of EHRs is that they are able to share a patient’s information quickly across service lines and even between different healthcare organizations. Information is at the fingertips of lab techs, primary care physicians, pharmacies, clinics, etc. The
The transformation of health care through the use of Health Information Technology continued with the passing of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, which mandated the integration of physician quality reporting and Electronic Health Record reporting. This Act required the creation of measures and reporting of the “meaningful use of the electronic health record” and “quality of care furnished to an individual.” In doing so, the law directly links the adoption of the electronic health record with quality of care to the patient. This entails coordination which the Act requires the use of electronic health
“An electronic health record (EHR) is a digital version of a patient’s paper chart. EHRs are real-time, patient-centered records that make information available instantly and securely to authorized users.” (healthit.gov) The EHR mandate was created “to share information with other health care providers and organizations – such as laboratories, specialists, medical imaging facilities, pharmacies, emergency facilities, and school and workplace clinics – so they contain information from all clinicians involved in a patient’s care.” ("Providers & Professionals | HealthIT.gov", n.d., p. 1) The process has proved to be quite challenging for providers. As an
Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) are now exercising a more significant impact on healthcare practices than ever before. The United States healthcare system stands on the brink of a new age of electronic health information technology. The potential for innovation within this new technology represents a great opportunity for the future of medicine. However, in seeking to implement EMRs caution must be exercised to ensure that implementation does not have adverse effects on the personal nature of the patient-physician relationship an important issue that must be addressed in order preserve the integrity of healthcare in the new electronic age.
Electronic health records (EHR’s) have many advantages, but there are plenty of disadvantages. EHR’s were created to manage the many aspects of healthcare information. Medical professionals use them daily and most would feel lost without it. Healthcare organizations were encouraged to adopt EHR’s in 2009 due to the fact that a bill passed known as The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act). “The HITECH Act outlines criteria to achieve “meaningful use” of certified electronic records. These criteria must be met in order for providers to receive financial incentives to promote adoption of EHRs as an integral part of their daily practice”, (Conrad, Hanson, Hasenau & Stocker-Schneider, 2012).