Things to Improve in the Healthcare System
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Things to Improve in the Healthcare System
The coronavirus pandemic highlighted numerous gaps in the U.S. healthcare system, especially regarding racial and ethnic disparities. Healthcare providers and policymakers have been working on improving medical access to primary care and insurance cover to ensure citizens receive suitable care. However, the lapses in the effectiveness of the policies suggests misinformation or lack of data-driven decision making in the national healthcare system. The gap underpins why I would advocate for the increased adoption of Electronic Health Records (EHR) to improve medical diagnosis and patient outcomes through improved insurance coverage and reduced medical errors. EHRs are scientifically proven to enhance clinician decision making and leadership, which is what the national healthcare system is in dire need. While the Federal government, since the Obama administration, has pumped billions of dollars in improving the adoption of EHRs, use of the recording system is yet to meet the information challenges that healthcare practitioners face daily.
Patients and healthcare providers still face operational impediments in many levels when it comes to implementing EHRS. Evans (2016) conducted a chronological analysis of the evolution of EHRs to find compatibility issues between information systems used in private medical facilities and the centralized national system. Private clinics are unable to effectively collaborate with each other and public healthcare agencies because of system incompatibilities. There is incomplete sharing of medical information between the private and public sector. At the lower level, clinicians encounter usability issues, such as complex interfaces. On the other hand, patients are too cautious on adopting telehealth and EHRs due to privacy and confidentiality concerns (Evans, 2016). The gap explains why national health needs to rethink its approach to EHRs, because the problem extends beyond enhancing interoperability.
It is my opinion that the adoption of EHRs needs to be supported by programs that improve the use of value-based care models. Such systems rewards both the clinician and patient for proactive management, helping establish a culture that favors feedback, data collection and data sharing (Goldstein et al. 2019). Integrating a cultural dimension into the implementation of EHRs is one way to answering the questions highlighted by the pandemic. The emphasis should not be on creating personalized health plans but rather facilitating the delivery of information to healthcare providers for improved healthcare monitoring, delivery and outcomes. Having a wide pool of information is key to having a library of healthcare plans that cater to an array of medical situations, such as natural disasters to global pandemics. The U.S. healthcare system needs to come to the conclusion that use of EHRs is not based on the need to become transaction-oriented but rather intelligence-oriented.
References
Evans R. S. (2016). Electronic health records: then, now, and in the future. Yearbook of Medical Informatics, Suppl 1(Suppl 1), S48–S61. https://doi.org/10.15265/IYS-2016-s006
Goldstein, I. H., Hwang, T., Gowrisankaran, S., Bales, R., Chiang, M. F., & Hribar, M. R. (2019). Changes in electronic health record use time and documentation over the course of a decade. Ophthalmology, 126(6), 783–791. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ophtha.2019.01.011