How electronic health records communicate Centricity EMR- its purpose
Electronic health records are used to store patient’s medical history data in healthcare facilities. They store data in digital form. Before electronic health records were adopted in healthcare institutions, manuals records were widely used to store patients’ medical history data. Patients’ medical history is crucial in healthcare because the records on a patient are used to give individualized healthcare. The records contribute greatly to the clinical decisions made by physicians, their assistants, nurses and other healthcare professionals in hospitals. The traditional manual records were contributing to many clinical errors and inefficiencies in financial and operational management.
One of the networks used in healthcare facilities to communicate health records on patients is Centricity EMR. The network is mainly used in outpatient settings to share medical data of patients across many sections or departments. Departments or sections in outpatient settings include laboratory department, billing department, physicians’ rooms, nurses’ rooms, pharmacy department and customer care.
Purposes of centricity EMR network
One of the purposes of the network is to share data on patients across many departments. The network accomplishes data sharing by connectivity from the main server which acts as the central store. In every department or section in the ambulatory settings, there are computers which are connected to the main server. Patients are identified by unique identifiers or objects in the system. These are objects that are unique only to one patient. Mostly used identifiers are unique serial numbers, although patients’ names are also used. The type of identifiers used depends on the user needs.
The other purpose of Centricity EMR network is to make data retrieval easy and improve clinical decision making process. It is quite fast to retrieve digital records from many records in a computer. This was not possible with the traditional manual records which required a lot of time to retrieve a single record. In some instances, some records could be missing, thus impeding healthcare delivery process. This could also impact on the clinical decision making because medical history of patients could not be used in making clinical decisions. Another purpose of Centricity EMR network is sharing of network resources. These resources include printers and scanners found within the network. The resources are crucial in data communication and sharing.
Architecture of Centricity EMR network
Network architecture is a crucial component for the functioning of the network. Networks with complex architectural designs have improved capabilities of performing their functions. On the other hand, networks with poor architectures hardly perform their functions. The Centricity EMR is a market leader in healthcare electronic systems with enhanced and stable architecture. The architecture involves a well designed framework for moving information from one section or department to another within ambulatory settings. It would be futile to have an electronic health records network without meaningful flow of information across sections or departments.
The architecture has tracking features that are essential in tracking or monitoring healthcare. For instance, the outcome of prescribing certain medication for hypertension. This architectural feature is so crucial in monitoring the progress of treatment and efficacy of various therapeutic agents on patients.
Warnings or reminders are important architectural features that help to remind physicians and other healthcare professionals crucial information about a patient. For instance, if a certain drug was not recommended for a patient at the beginning, then the system would warn the physician when he or she electronically prescribes the same drug to the patient.
The Centricity EMR architecture on reports and results is essential in decentralizing healthcare. The architecture allows for viewing of patients’ reports and results from every section or department. For example, a physician can easily view laboratory results for a patient in his or her office. Also, the billing department can check and compute the total cost of healthcare provided to a patient. Digital formatting architecture is crucial in sharing and using digital information of patients over network. For the information to be shared and used, the network must be safe and reliable.
The shape of the network
The central server is connected to computers in the physicians’ rooms, nurses’ rooms, administration offices, billing department, customer care and the pharmacy. Information flows across the departments and the departments communicate directly. For example, the billing department can communicate with the pharmacy department to inform the personnel that some drugs are out of stock, thus they should not prescribe them to patients.
Scope of the network
The network covers all the departments and sections within the ambulatory settings. The covered sections and departments are: billing department, customer care or reception department, physicians’ offices, doctors’ offices and the laboratory departments. The sharing of the network across the sections and departments in the outpatient setting ensures that there is sharing of patients’ medical information for better healthcare services. The sharing also ensures that the departments and sections in the outpatient settings are interdependent. This is crucial because in absence of such a wide spread network it would imply that patients’ data are stored in a central computer where all interested users would queue to access the information. This would lead to a lot of time wastage.
Users and issues
The users of the network are:
- Physicians and medical doctors
- Nurses
- Pharmacists and their assistants
- Laboratory personnel
- Administration
Issues related with the network usage are:
- Slow adoption by new personnel
- Occasional loss of connectivity
Personnel in all the departments and sections in the outpatient settings use the Centricity EMR network. The personnel include physicians, medical doctors, nurses, laboratory technicians and researchers, accountants, pharmacists and pharmaceutical technologists. New personnel find it difficult to adopt the system in their first days at work. However, they get used to the network with time. The network experiences some low connectivity which disrupts operations in the outpatient settings. However, low connectivity is not frequently experienced.
Comparison to typical networks
- Both allow sharing of files.
- Both allow interpersonal communication.
- Both allow sharing of network resources (Snow, Miles & Coleman Jr, 2000).
The network’s characteristics fit those found in scholarly literature. Research demonstrates that efficient networks need to share files across sections. This allows users to access information stored in many computers in the system. It has also been shown that functional networks have to allow interpersonal communication via emails, chats and video conferencing. This makes communication among personnel in the same organization easy. It has also been demonstrated that efficient networks allow sharing of network and other computing resources. These resources may include printers and scanners.
Advantages
The Centricity network has many advantages in the outpatient settings in the healthcare facility. One of the advantages is clinical outcomes. With the network, there is improved quality of clinical healthcare because of enhanced and timely sharing of patients’ data. For example, the timely sharing of laboratory results with the doctors or physicians before they can prescribe drugs to the patients. The network also contributes to reduced clinical errors.
The network helps improve organizational outcomes. These outcomes are on finances and operations. The network ensures that operations in the outpatient settings run smoothly. In addition, it promotes prudence financial management.
Disadvantages
The main disadvantages of the network are high acquisition and maintenance costs. Healthcare facilities pay high amount of money to instal the network. In addition, it is expensive to maintain the network because it requires occasional maintenance checks and diagnostics. Without regular maintenance and diagnostics, the network can not function efficiently to serve the users. The fact that it is expensive to acquire and maintain the network makes it difficult for small healthcare facilities to acquire the network.
References
Saba, V. K. (2001). Nursing informatics: yesterday, today and tomorrow. International Nursing Review, 48(3), 177-187.
Snow, C., Miles, R., & Coleman Jr, H. J. (2000). Managing 21st century network organizations. Technology, Organizations and Innovation: Towards “Real Virtuality”?, 1621-38.
Wang, S. J., Middleton, B., Prosser, L. A., Bardon, C. G., Spurr, C. D., Carchidi, P. J.,… & Bates, D. W. (2003). A cost-benefit analysis of electronic medical records in primary care. The American journal of medicine, 114(5), 397-403.