Nursing Informatics - Electronic Health Records

Running head: NURSING INFORMATICS 1
Nursing Informatics
Name
Institution

NURSING INFORMATICS 2
Electronic Health Records
Electronic health records may be referred to as computerized medical information
systems that are used to collect, display and store all information regarding a patient. There are
several positive effects of using EHRs in the healthcare setting but the rate of adoption of these
systems is still not high enough and in some instances, they meet resistance from patients
(Kohane, 2011). They represent one of the most essential tools for improving the quality of care
and patient safety. However, this may only be realized if the health practitioners can use these
systems more frequently to enjoy their benefits. It has been widely reported that a widespread
use of EHRs could also lead to a reduction in the cost of providing ambulatory services (Romano
& Stafford, 2011). It is, however, important to note that these systems are not usually user-
friendly are there are some considerable barriers to their adoption.
One of the barriers to the adoption of this system is that it may be time-consuming to
train how to use an EHR. In fact, reports have suggested that most physicians, even though they
needed this system, they in most cases lacked the time to learn new features of the system and
participate in further training (Ajami & Bagheri-Tadi, 2013). Additionally, there was this aspect
of an extremely high upfront financial cost that was required to implement the EHR systems.
This high initial cost put off the physicians thus being a barrier in their implementation.
Another barrier which further stressed the fact that the use of electronic health records is not
always user-friendly was the fact that it needed the possession of computer skills. It is, however,
important to note that some physicians lacked these skills (Ajami & Bagheri-Tadi, 2013). These
skills include listening to the complaints of the patient and assessing the medical relevance. The