Electronic Health Record Management

Question: Discuss EHR system challenges and the supporting roles of HIM professionals in addressing these challenges. Recognize the planning and implementation aspects of EHRs. Provide examples of EHR systems as they may be implemented in various types of health care settings. Answer: Introduction: The field of healthcare is progressing in the area of the electronic health records (EHRs) that helps in improving the safety and quality of the care of the patient and gains much efficiency in the delivery system of the healthcare. Much stress is made on the systems that give support to the decision making in the clinical department as well as the process of care taking for the patients in the creation of health information. Therefore is essential to further look at the information phase and develop a plan which results in the maintaining of the EHR system at a higher level for all the legal and business purposes. Thus the EHR management and the EHR system therefore will continue to function critically in providing care across the healthcare organizations (Evans Dwight C et al (2006). But these days to start developing an EHR system the vendors, healthcare staff and the others ignore to enhance the processes and capabilities in order to enable correct functioning of the system and m ake sure that the electronic version is present in the legal business record rather than the existence of the paper type system. The traditional health and business records management concepts should be applied and evaluated in todays world of the EHRs systems. Hence there must be a good knowledge about the change in the process of management which is necessary for the activities of these healthcare organizations and also help to analyze all the benefits in the use of the EHRs and in the requests for the selection, installation, development, implementation and the proposals to be able to take care of the needs and requirements of the organization. Therefore here the HIM professionals can help to bring the management records techniques to paper practices and also start and guide the organization to shift to the electronic record systems. These HIM professionals can also help in the office visit, documentation, payment and coding of the activities of the organizations. They can also i dentify the negative aspects and recommend the organization as to where there is a need for improvement and how best they can achieve the practice. The HIM professionals can help physician to manage the practice of using paper to plan for electronic systems and also support and implement an electronic atmosphere in an organization (DesRoches, Catherine M., et al (2008). It is very essential to develop a change in the strategy of management by using the EHRs system and this strategy will also recognize the important factors of the relationship in the management process and also help the staff members to perform their duties and to manage the change efficiently. They must try and create a vision for the goal for implementing the process of the EHRs system. These implementations include four stages that are; selection, decision, pre-implementation, implementation and post implementation. These stages give importance to identify the sources to serve the values of the EHRs and also in providing encouragement and direction to the project. The other factors that help in the implementing of the assessing the workflow is to understand the financial issues first then conduct various training sessions that are timed well to meet all the needs of the staff and their requirements. The use of the EHRs system is best explained in a behavioral healthcare (BHC) setting which has a wide range of services from the outpatient substance and the fulltime treatments for the psychiatric treatment. These services also differ in the type of care that is provided for instance they offer a group therapy or a face to face counseling etc. this diversity is the fact that every area has much sensitivity in regards to both treatment approaches and also in the privacy of the clients. However behavioral health organizations have exited from implementing anelectronic health record (EHR) because they feel that the complexity of the care setting involves the use of technology and also the EHRs have traditionally focused on getting information about physical medical conditions and the main context for the BHC field is very limited (McDonald et al (2014). The expense of an EHR has presented additional drawbacks as organizations are sometimes hesitant and unable to raise capital for tech nology. These are, however the challenges that are faced by the healthcare organizations if EHRs are not implemented, especially as behavioral health information becomes more critical for the patients record. References AHIMA e-HIMTM Task Force. "The Strategic Importance of Electronic Health Records Management." Journal of AHIMA 75, no.9 (October 2004) Evans Dwight C.; Nichol, W. Paul; Perlin, Jonathan B. (2006). "Effect of the implementation of an enterprise-wide Electronic Health Record on productivity in the Veterans Health Administration".Health Economics, Policy and Law DesRoches, Catherine M., et al. Electronic Health Records in Ambulatory CareA National Survey of Physicians.New England Journal of Medicine359, no. 1 (July 3, 2008) McDonald, Clement J.; Callaghan, Fiona M.; Weissman, Arlene; Goodwin, Rebecca M.; Mundkur, Mallika; Kuhn, Thomson (November 2014). "Use of Internist's Free Time by Ambulatory Care Electronic Medical Record Systems"