Overall Description of the “Meditech” Electronic Health Records
The “Meditech EHR” is an electronic health record (EHR) that provides solutions for hospitals and health care institutions on recording, storing, processing and retrieving information about the patients’ health condition. Being a product of a major company, “Meditech” is used in a large number of hospitals and clinics (Aller, Shortliffe, & Cimino, 2014), and can be employed in virtually any clinical setting.
The “Meditech EHR” allows for storing and retrieving a wide range of data, such as the history of the patients, their vitals, their diagnoses, the results of their laboratory tests, drug information, diagnostic images, demographical data, and so on. It also stores Continuity of Care documents which record information on patients’ visits to clinics or their hospitalization. The system also allows health care providers to use functions such as task prioritizing, quick access to the information, etc.
How Does “Meditech” EHR Align With Healthcare Information Standards?
“Meditech” EHR was designed to align with the numerous healthcare information standards existing in the U.S., and adjustments are made when standards change. “Meditech” HER is currently in compliance with such acts as The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, allowing for the electronic exchange of information about patients among health care providers who are eligible, or The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, supplying high-quality security of the data, as well as various means to protect the privacy of the patients, etc. The “Meditech” company also strives to align its product so it allows for meeting the Joint Commission’s 2016 National Patient Safety Goals, providing the medics with the necessary support which allows them to comply with these Goals (Meditech, 2016). Besides, it helps health care providers facilitate patient education (Stossel, Segar, Gliatto, Fallar, & Karani, 2012).
Analysis of Security of “Meditech” EHR and Possible Preventive Actions
The “Meditech” EHR achieves the security of the patients’ data by employing restrictions that apply to different users and are classified according to the status of the user (a patient, a health care provider) and to the location from which the health record is viewed. Therefore, to prevent the leak of information, it is paramount to strictly define under which conditions one can have access to the data stored in EHR, and which status they will have; it should also be ensured that the customer approaches this issue with due attention (Aller et al., 2014).
On the whole, the data about the patients is stored in the cloud, which means that the safety of the data depends on the safety of the cloud. However, it is known that the safety of the clouds has improved over the last years; “Meditech” EHR is stated to comply with the safety regulations as outlined in The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (Meditech, 2016).
How Is Patients’ Confidentiality Managed?
The “Meditech” EHR provides compliance with the patients’ privacy policies by employing the Basic Patient Privacy Consents. Patients can use the system by utilizing an Internet-based instrument to view their information and communicate with medics while maintaining their confidentiality. The identity of the clients, therefore, can also be managed by the clients themselves.
How Can Data from “Meditech” EHR Be Used for Making Decisions?
The use of the “Meditech” EHR can make the process of health care decision-making significantly easier than decision-making based on paper records. “Meditech” allows the authorized medics to easily access virtually all the data on a particular patient within a very short time, simultaneously guaranteeing that no information is lost if all the data has been entered correctly.
“Meditech” also stores the information about the patient obtained in other medical institutions, prioritizes tasks, as well as displays the real-time information about the patient’s condition, which gives the health care providers a more comprehensive picture of the patient’s health (Kirwin, DiVall, Guerra, & Brown, 2013). Of course, the use of this technology demands the proper data input, which may take additional time (Tay, Sefton, Selby, & Tume, 2016), but the availability of the data significantly increases.
References
Aller, R. D., Shortliffe, E. H., & Cimino, J. J. (2014). Review of biomedical informatics. Journal of Pathology Informatics, 5, 42.
Kirwin, J. L., DiVall, M. V., Guerra, C., & Brown, T. (2013). A simulated hospital pharmacy module using an electronic medical record in a pharmaceutical care skills laboratory course. The American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 77(3), 62.
Meditech. (2016). Meet regulations.
Stossel, L. M., Segar, N., Gliatto, P., Fallar, R., & Karani, R. (2012). Readability of patient education materials available at the point of care. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 27(9), 1165-1170.
Tay, C., Sefton, G., Selby, A., & Tume, L. (2016). Electronic observations and early warning scoring in a specialist children’s hospital. Archives of Disease in Childhood, 101, A196-A197. DOI:10.1136/archdischild-2016-310863.326