HITECH Act: Historical Significance
The integration of Electronic Health Records (EHR) into the healthcare system was slow among hospitals due to significant financial and educational barriers. In 2009, the United States Department of Health and Human Services and the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) introduced the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act to overcome this issue (Holmgren et al., 2018). Among the strategies of the HITECH Act was the Meaningful Use program, which outlined the specific goals that the organizations had to reach to get financial incentives (Holmgren et al., 2018). These include using a certified EHR, reporting the measures of clinical quality, and meeting core and menu set objectives (Holmgren et al., 2018). The act incentivized organizations to implement EHR in their practice while upholding a high quality of care and contributing to research. The financial incentive helped healthcare businesses to overcome the financial barrier.
EHR Meaningful Use
The Meaningful Use program has encouraged the process of digitalization in patient care, changing the ways in which patients, providers, and other involved parties interact with each other. According to Atasoy et al. (2019), the increased implementation of EHR under the new act has led to it becoming a universal system for storing and sharing patient data. The reviews demonstrate that EHR has positively contributed to the quality of care (Atasoy et al., 2019; Dinh-Le et al., 2019). Moreover, Ebnehoseini et al. (2020) state that EHR influences hospitals’ efficiency and communication. It should be noted that the act’s role in EHR integration is vital as its meaningful use principles have encouraged organizations to follow the regulations and submit data and pay attention to quality care. Atasoy et al. (2019) argue that technology adoption was stagnant before the Meaningful Use program was introduced. The research has shifted from analyzing the potential benefits of EHR to its future uses and updates.
Applications
EHR is a system that contains patient data, which implies that it has many uses in the healthcare system. During patient assessment, the EHR is used to standardize data about the patient and enter it into a system for future use by multiple specialists. In planning, EHR aids in simplifying data access and coordinating care between units and care providers (Craig et al., 2021). Such aspects of planning as patient handover, discharge, and post-discharge care are connected to using EHR. Medication administration errors are reduced with the help of EHR as it decreases the difficulty of finding the necessary information and reduces human error (Atasoy et al., 2019; Craig et al., 2021). Patients can also benefit from EHR implementation, as they allow patients to communicate with the provider, get notified about appointments, and receive more knowledge about their health (Craig et al., 2021). Finally, EHR can be applied for outcome evaluation and research – one may easily request data that is standardized and digitized for seeing statistics and changes.
Care Coordination
As noted above, EHR aids providers in sharing information about the patient with one another to ensure that every involved specialist gets access to all relevant patient data. Therefore, EHR helps in overcoming the problem of knowledge fragmentation, in which patients share only a part of their data with each provider or where records are not transferred between specialists (Lye et al., 2018). With access to EHR, a provider gets all patient information instantly, allowing for quicker and more efficient coordination. Moreover, the use of such systems gives providers an opportunity to monitor patients in ambulatory settings in different locations and home care. Many time-intensive processes, such as asking for additional information and finding records, are eliminated if EHR is used (Lye et al., 2018). Thus, providers can easily work together and separately without the need for lengthy communication.
Language
The implementation of EHR requires using standardized languages and vocabulary. One of them is the Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine – Clinical Terms (SNOMED-CT) (Chang & Mostafa, 2021). Using this vocabulary, providers can exchange information in a way that makes every piece of data readable. In ambulatory care, the use of SNOMED-CT is vital, as such organizations serve many patients who often have to be cared for by several specialists. Therefore, the patient handover process requires one to relay information in a universally understood way. In this case, standardization increases efficiency and lowers the risk of misinformation and misunderstanding. Another helpful system is the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10), which is used to diagnose diseases (Chang & Mostafa, 2021). Using the two systems, clinical decision-making becomes based on international and national systems, which shifts the focus toward health outcomes and improves the quality of statistics.
Policy
The implementation of EHR requires organizations to consider the safety of patient data. As all information is digitized, it faces new risks of being stolen or misused by those who get access to the system legally or illegally. For this reason, the use of EHR is regulated by policies and laws. One of the most recognized laws is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), enacted in 1996 (Mbonihankuye et al., 2019). HIPAA establishes national standards for patient data safety and protection. Moreover, it aims to eliminate fraud and abuse of patient data and allow the patient to refuse to disclose personal information without consent.
References
Atasoy, H., Greenwood, B. N., & McCullough, J. S. (2019). The digitization of patient care: A review of the effects of electronic health records on health care quality and utilization. Annual Review of Public Health, 40, 487-500. Web.
Chang, E., & Mostafa, J. (2021). The use of SNOMED CT, 2013-2020: A literature review. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 28(9), 2017-2026. Web.
Craig, S. J., Kastello, J. C., Cieslowski, B. J., & Rovnyak, V. (2021). Simulation strategies to increase nursing student clinical competence in safe medication administration practices: A quasi-experimental study. Nurse Education Today, 96, 104605. Web.
Dinh-Le, C., Chuang, R., Chokshi, S., & Mann, D. (2019). Wearable health technology and electronic health record integration: Scoping review and future directions. JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 7(9), e12861. Web.
Ebnehoseini, Z., Tara, M., Tabesh, H., Dindar, F. H., & Hasibian, S. (2020). Understanding key factors affecting on hospital electronic health record (EHR) adoption. Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care, 9(8), 4348-4352. Web.
Lye, C. T., Forman, H. P., Daniel, J. G., & Krumholz, H. M. (2018). The 21st Century Cures Act and electronic health records one year later: Will patients see the benefits? Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 25(9), 1218-1220. Web.
Mbonihankuye, S., Nkunzimana, A., & Ndagijimana, A. (2019). Healthcare data security technology: HIPAA compliance. Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing, 2019, 1927495. Web.