Essay --

Electronic health records or electronic medical records depending on where you are reading are becoming a growing trend in the health care field. When we go to the doctor’s office, we are familiar with a folder containing all of our medical visits, immunizations we have received, and medical treatments we may have also received. All of this information is kept in a folder and either stored on site or it is sent off to a storage facility. The new trend of electronic health records are suppose to simplify and make things a lot easier for both the patient and the health care workers. Imagine going to a doctor’s appointment for a physical and your medical records were not present. There is no way for the doctor’s office and staff to know what shots you have received and needed to renew. This had actually happened to me. I went for a physical that is needed for the nursing program in November and my doctor’s office did not have my charts on hand and need ed to request them from Iron Mountain. Why they didn’t have it ready before my appointment, nobody knows and to this day are unable to answer. If they had transitioned to the electronic health recording, they would have been able to pull up my records right there and then. Instead, they had inconvenienced me (by having me come back) and set their schedules back because another appointment was needed to be rescheduled. Electronic health records are an electronic/digital version of a patient’s medical records. It is recorded in real-time and is readily available as soon as it is updated. It is a secured digital way of keeping track of a patient’s medical records and only authorized medical personnel are able to have access to them. Electronic health records was developed in ... ...t has also opened up other options for physicians like Filipiuk who can’t adapt to the new system and have another way of getting their job completed. In conclusion, electronic health records are a new trend that will affect patients, health care providers and physicians in a positive way. It will allow a universal database for all health care providers to access and to have everyone on the same page. Patients and physicians will see improvement in quality and convenience of patient care, increased patient participation in their care, improved accuracy of diagnosis and health outcomes, improved care coordination, and increased practice efficiencies and cost savings. In order to increase awareness of electronic health records, education is the central focus. Like with anything new, it will take time for patients, physicians, and health care providers to adjust.