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EHR Review
EHR Review
In the early 21st century, the United States Veterans Health Administration started implementing Electronic Health Record (EHR) in a few of its largest Veterans Affairs Medical Centre (VAMC). EHR technology was implemented to replace the traditional paper-based medical records.
The EHR technology allows nurses to record patients’ clinic information such as reminders, prescription doses and blood works into its database. Research was conducted by Saleem’s team (Saleem, 2011) in 2011 to follow up on the change implantation. Research found that though HER system was implemented successfully, the goal of improving productivity as clearly not achieved. Nurses need to do extra work for data entering and the system failed to achieve the designer’s intension of “real-time update of patient status”.
Photo by Cedric Fauntleroy: https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-in-gray-shirt-holding-a-tablet-computer-4269933/
The project was not entirely successful due to several factors including:
Not aware of the purpose and benefit of EHR.
Not having enough skills to type or to use the EHR.
EHR is not user friendly and impacted their workflow.
Not trusting the technology behind EHR.
This case study shows the importance of assessing the change goal as well as the importance of communicating and seeking feedback from stakeholders. it seems that during the change, the goal was shifted from “Improve productivity” to “Implementation of EHR system”. Changes that an extended time period could often drift the plan away from its initial goal. Effective closure communication with seeking feedback from individual stakeholders not only helps to understand and manage the resistance, but also help organisations assess and re-work its action plan to align with its goal.
Read More:
Saleem, J. R. (2011). Paper persistence, workarounds, and communication breakdowns in computerized consultation management. International Journal of Medical Informatics(80), 466–479.
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