Electronic Medical Records
Death is an unavoidable part of life. It can come at almost any time and from almost any source. Even something as simple as a walk down a flight of stairs has the potential to lead to tragedy. Hospitals have generally been seen as man 's last bastion of hope against the specter that is Death. However, just like death, human error is also unavoidable. When these two unavoidable factors come together in a medical institution where salvation is expected, the result is tragedy. Needlessly, thousands of lives have been lost due to simple human mistakes in the very place where the best chance of saving those lives could be found. Despite the expense and hurdles of implementation, the establishment of an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) infrastructure is an essential key to saving lives and money over the long term.
Admittedly, putting an interconnected network of EMR systems throughout a country is a daunting prospect and will be time-consuming and expensive. Getting a single facility to make the switchover from standard physical records would be a challenge. The cost of purchasing the required equipment, providing training for staff and the long task of converting existing records into an electronic format have given most medical facilities reason for pause. In addition, with this technology there are associated privacy concerns. As one Director of Information Systems by the name of Lincoln Stein outlined in a paper (Stein, 1997), these concerns are over the possibility of the system being ‘hacked’ into or even legitimate access being abused by inquisitive personnel. These crucial issues have to be addressed from the outset of the design of any such system. However, they are not insurmountable and careful forethought and security restrictions the EMR system can be protected and considered safe. The potential good of its implementation outweighs with the potential bad. In contrast to the current paper archives, EMR allows for redundancy in the face of calamity.
Admittedly, putting an interconnected network of EMR systems throughout a country is a daunting prospect and will be time-consuming and expensive. Getting a single facility to make the switchover from standard physical records would be a challenge. The cost of purchasing the required equipment, providing training for staff and the long task of converting existing records into an electronic format have given most medical facilities reason for pause. In addition, with this technology there are associated privacy concerns. As one Director of Information Systems by the name of Lincoln Stein outlined in a paper (Stein, 1997), these concerns are over the possibility of the system being ‘hacked’ into or even legitimate access being abused by inquisitive personnel. These crucial issues have to be addressed from the outset of the design of any such system. However, they are not insurmountable and careful forethought and security restrictions the EMR system can be protected and considered safe. The potential good of its implementation outweighs with the potential bad. In contrast to the current paper archives, EMR allows for redundancy in the face of calamity.
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