EHRs Address The Need for Improved Care Coordination
We have experienced a growing need improved for care coordination in the healthcare industry. As medical practices and technologies advance, the delivery of sophisticated, high-quality medical care requires teams of health care providers, such as primary care physicians, specialists, nurses, technicians, and other clinicians.
Members of the healthcare team tend to have specific, limited interaction with the patient and, depending on the team member’s area of expertise, a somewhat different view of the patient. In effect, a healthcare team’s view of the patient becomes fragmented into disconnected facts and clusters of symptoms.
Health care providers need less fragmented views of patients, and more care coordination.
Leveraging an EHR across the continuum of care allows for:
A) improved integration among providers with better information sharing
B) viewable, up-to-date medication and allergy lists
C) order entry at point of care or off-site
D) standardization of data, order sets, and care plans
E) implementing common treatment of patients using evidence-based medicine
F) access to experts for rural healthcare providers by sharing best practices
G) allowing for specialized care through telemedicine
H) population management trend data, and treatment and outcome studies
I) convenient, fast, and simple disease management
EHRs Improve Care Coordination
Electronic health record (EHR) systems decrease the fragmentation of care, improving care coordination. EHRs integrate and organize patient health information and facilitate its instant distribution among all authorized providers involved in a patient’s care. For instance, EHR alerts can be used to notify providers when a patient has been in the hospital, allowing them to proactively follow up with the patient.
With EHRs, every provider can have the same accurate and up-to-date information about a patient, improving care coordination.
This is especially important with patients who are:
Seeing multiple specialists
Making transitions between care settings
Receiving treatment in emergency settings
Better availability of patient information can reduce medical errors and unnecessary tests.
Better availability of information can also reduce the chance that one specialist will not know about an unrelated (but relevant) condition being managed by another specialist.
Better care coordination can lead to better quality of care and improved patient outcomes.
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