Introduction
Electronic health records in healthcare are sophisticated software used to capture and store information about patients. The system was developed as a program aimed at streamlining the country’s healthcare system. The program’s main function was to ensure that all the relevant data concerning the country’s citizens were kept safe and could be easily retrieved whenever the patient sought medical services in public hospitals. The project effectively streamed the services offered to special groups of citizens like veterans who experience challenges accessing government assistance in healthcare. The choice of the topic is based on the fact that the rolling out of electronic health records has a significant impact on all of society since such systems enhance the quality of healthcare. In addition, implementing the project will create more job opportunities for individuals with computer science knowledge who will be used to manage the data and the entire software. Therefore, choosing electronic health records as my topic directly impacts the career I want to pursue and serve the community.
Discussion
Electronic health records are one of the key developments in the healthcare system as they revolutionize the healthcare operations in the country. The rolling over of the veteran electronic health records software significantly impacted my profession as it is an example of how the development of effective systems can be of significant benefit to a state. The system will provide numerous job opportunities for individuals with computer science backgrounds as they will be able to work on different aspects of the system like software engineers, software designers, extensive data management, and system maintenance (Solares et al., 2020). Such tasks are highly critical in the software development process and require only specialized computer science professionals to handle the different issues that may arise in the system. The rollout of the electronic health record and the investment of more money in the program indicate the use of information technology in most sectors of the economy. The significant negative impact of the system linked to my professional career is the negative reputation of the system based on the harm the system had caused to over a hundred and fifty patients caused malfunctioning of the system.
The article examines how the use of electronic health records has impacted the provision of healthcare services in the country, especially regarding veteran affairs. The author examines the various ways the system has used a lot of billions and is yet to solve the problem of veterans accessing quality healthcare services (Landi, 2022). It shows how a system malfunction had caused harm to patients, making the lawmakers take the issue and push for developing a new, effective, proficient software to reduce such impacts. In the process, the lawmakers have suggested a rollout of the system to a new one that would ensure effective service delivery to the patient. In addition, the article scrutinizes the company responsible for software development and how it is planning to deal with the issue to ensure enhanced performance and effective service delivery. The lawmakers question the expanding budget and the success of previous rollouts suggesting their distrust in the company contracted to provide the systems (Landi, 2022). Due to this reason, they develop legal conditions on the project failure to which they will be forced to cancel the entire project and take legal action against the contracted company.
Based on the article, the electronic health record system has numerous benefits and weaknesses. Among the benefits include the ease of storage and access to patient data which enable an effective treatment process (Cherif & Mzoughi, 2022). Another benefit is the reduction of paperwork to a modernized healthcare record stored in cloud storage. In addition, the software is effective in the enhancement of quality of care as the software keeps the health history of the patients making it easy to access medical services without having to start the process again whenever the patient seeks medical services in other healthcare facilities (Cherif & Mzoughi, 2022). In addition, the software makes it easy to undertake data analysis and develop effective policies to control the health care system.
The shortcomings likely to be experienced in the breakdown of the system are that a breakdown of the system may lead to adverse impacts on the patients. This process makes people perceive the use of electronic software as unreliable (Cherif & Mzoughi, 2022). In addition, the development of the system and its maintenance requires highly skilled individuals to ensure better performance and stability for its end users. Such perceptions may negatively impact the profession, making it challenging to get a job.
In the development of the assignment, informatics skills are extensively utilized. First, information management was evident in the development of the argument made in the article. The lawmakers have complete information on the electronic health records project, its operations, and the various challenges it experienced (Wang & Wang, 2019). In addition, a system analysis was undertaken to identify the shortcomings it experienced and the various ways it failed to attain the desired outcomes leading to the development of the rollout (Wang & Wang, 2019). The main argument in the article shows how the leadership was concerned about the health of the public and the veterans ensuring that social justice prevailed for those who were adversely affected when the systems failed. The lawmakers propose effective planning for the project to ensure they attain the desired outcomes (Landi, 2022). Using informatics skills enabled the development of strict decisions concerning the rolled-out program to ensure that public funds are not wasted on an unsuccessful project.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the lawmakers were very keen on the progress of the electronic health records project, as portrayed through their arguments. The article shows that the project has experienced another rollout in the past, making the public fail to reap the project’s benefits; instead, its failure caused harm to patients. The poor management of the project and lack of a strict oversight team to supervise the project are to blame for the rollouts experienced in the project leading to an inflation of the budget intended to complete the project. Therefore, the lawmakers should propose the development of an oversight board that will be responsible for controlling the project and ensuring that public finances are effectively used. In addition, a project timeline should be created to ensure that all targets are met within the specified time. A quality management team should also be set up to scrutinize the program and ensure it meets all desired outcomes. Legal action should be taken against the project managers for any harm that would develop to the patients caused to patients in case of project failure.
References
Cherif, E., & Mzoughi, M. (2022). Electronic health record adopters: A typology based on patients’ privacy concerns and perceived benefits. Public Health, 207, 46-53. Web.
Landi, H. (2022). Oracle vows to get VA’s $16B EHR overhaul ‘back on track’ as lawmakers warn project could be scrapped. Fierce Healthcare. Web.
Solares, J. R. A., Raimondi, F. E. D., Zhu, Y., Rahimian, F., Canoy, D., Tran, J. & Salimi-Khorshidi, G. (2020). Deep learning for electronic health records: A comparative review of multiple deep neural architectures. Journal of Biomedical Informatics, 101, 103337. Web.
Wang, Z., & Wang, X. (2019). From information, to data, to knowledge – Digital scholarship centers: An emerging transdisciplinary digital knowledge and research methods integrator in academic and research libraries. IFLA Journal, 46(1), 5-14. Web.