Electronic Medical Records
Doctors have been recording information about their patients since the days of ancient Egypt. Written records served well when medicine was less specialized than it is today, people were less mobile and patients were (for better or worse) more tolerant of physician errors.
Today, the world is moving to electronic medical records (EMRs) to consolidate medical information about a patient in a central place. According to Trisha Torrey, a patient advocate, an EMR is "a digital record kept by your doctor's office, your insurance company or a facility where you are a patient." She goes on to say that "EMR systems are intended to keep track of a patients entire health and medical history in a computerized, electronic format. By keeping these potentially vast records in this manner, they are more easily retrievable, and can make a patent's navigation through the health care system much safer and more efficient.
Discussion questions
1. Consider Dr. Ofri's comments about the trade-offs of using EMRs in the contact of your most recent visit to a health care professional. Did he or she use a computer? If so, did you feel that it interfered with your discussion? Compare answers with your classmates
2. Suppose your family lives in Vermont, you attend school in Texas and you break your leg while skiing in Colorado. Describe how EMRs could help in that situation
Critical Thinking Questions
1a. (For US students) The United States has been criticized for having excellent health care but no health care system. Do you feel that criticism is justified? What f anything, can EMRs do to address this concern?
1b. (for student outside the United States) Compare what your country is doing with EMRs with the situation in any Other country at approximately the same economic level. Is your county ahead of the other in is adoption or behind? Why is this so? In your opinion, is that a problem?
2. Find the definition of 'meaningful use of EMRs on the Web. Do you feel that the meaningful use standards for physicians force them to move too fast? Let them move too slowly?
Attachment:- case.rar