Statistics easily found on the Internet attribute more U.S. deaths to medical mistakes than to firearms- a jarring reminder of the challenges put before the medical profession on a daily basis.
Even more sobering: Nearly 70 percent of these mistakes could have been prevented.
Some legislation has taken aim at mandating error reporting but a better focus is on error
prevention at the point of care, and the current shift toward Electronic Medical Records (EMRs).
In 2004, President Bush announced his plan for a dramatically changed
health care system,
which included a 10-year deadline for widespread adoption of EMRs.
In Massachusetts, where the cost of health care is higher then anywhere else in the nation, the state is taking a bullish approach to implementation of a statewide EMR system after a Massachusetts Technology Collaborative study showed that state hospitals could lower costs by more then $274 million annually by using EMR technology.
While most doctors, urgent care practices and hospitals now accept working from an electronic representation of patient information, many facilities are still in the early evolutionary phase of building a robust EMR system. And unfortunately it is the patient who suffers from this slow moving process.
Case in point: A recent American Medical Association study found that more than half of the information missing from patients' medical records is with other providers or clinical laboratories.
Most agree that EMR technologies will drive the future of patient care and safety. A tangled nationwide web of hospitals and private practices is currently knee-deep in plotting long-range plans that wrestle with the logistics of how to implement this massive- yet necessary- mandate.
Smaller practices and facilities have the flexibility, and advantage, of being among the first to bring these patients friendly services to market, as well as the challenge of making it an affordable infrastructure and capital investment.
When Northwest Hand Specialists built its headquarters facility in North Seattle in 2003, we believed the investment in EMR technology was necessary to ensure that our patients are educated and confident in all aspects of their care.
From our Seattle to our Everett and Woodinville offices, patients' prescriptions, operative reports, therapy notes, medical history, radiology images, arthroscopic and surgery photos and MRI images are all connected in real time and instantly accessible.
While the investment was sizeable, the positive return is immeasurable. Patients are in control of their medical information and empowered by the efficiency by which their personal health information is available and managed.
However powerful the result, the investment for smaller practices remains significant. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 68 percent of practices with 50 or more physicians have adopted EMR systems, but for those with five or fewer doctors, only 12 percent have adopted EMRs. Locally, the Washington State Hospital Association estimates that 15 percent to 20 percent of physician groups statewide have invested in an EMR solution.
As a smaller practitioner who made the jump
to EMR, here are a few tips you might consider
when evaluating an EMR investment:
Edwin D. Vyhmeister MD, C. Hendrik Kirchhoff MD and Harold J. Kirkpatrick MD - Providing services in hand and wrist injury surgery, tennis elbow and shoulder therapy and tendinitis treatment to the areas of Everett and Seattle, Washington.
Everett Tennis Elbow Therapy
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