Electronic Health Records: Improving Patient Safety and Delivery

This report discusses the utilization of Electronic Health Records (EHR) as a strategy for improving patient safety and healthcare delivery, focusing on the context of Saudi Arabia's National eHealth Program. EHRs are presented as key tools for providing accurate patient information, reducing information accessibility time, enhancing information security, and enabling accurate diagnoses, ultimately increasing healthcare effectiveness through enhanced departmental connectedness, improved information relaying, cloud service accessibility, and live monitoring of emergency events. While EHRs promise to reduce medical errors, improve patient flow, and enable better delegation and response to clinical events, the report acknowledges existing limitations in safety, usability, and interoperability. Key recommendations include increased staff training, improved communication, and feedback mechanisms to combat these limitations, emphasizing the need for collaborative discussions, reviews with health professionals, educational workshops, and the integration of clinical and IT departments to ensure successful EHR implementation guided by national standards and policies.

Electronic
Health Records
Name of the Student:
Name of the University

Introduction
•Electronic Health Records
(EHR) utilize information
technology for the
documentation of patient
information (Miotto et al.,
2016)
•The National eHealth Program
has been implemented by the
Ministry of Health (MOH) of
Saudi Arabia for the purpose of
improving deliverance and
efficacy in healthcare (Kingdom
of Saudi Arabia, 2012).

Healthcare Delivery
EHRs play key roles in
healthcare delivery by
(Bauchner, Berwick &
Fontanarosa, 2016):
•Providing accurate patient
information.
•Reducing time required for
information accessibility.
•Enhancing security of
information.
•Enabling accuracy in
diagnosis.

Effective Healthcare
EHRs increase the healthcare
effectiveness by (Erfannia,
Sadoughi & Sheikhtaheri,
2018):
•Enhancing hospital
departmental connectedness.
•Enhancing relaying of
information to all health
professionals .
•Providing cloud service for
improved accessibility.
•Enabling live monitoring of
emergency healthcare events.

Raise Healthcare
Quality
EHRs raise healthcare
quality by (Campanella et
al., 2018).
•Reducing medical errors.
•Improving patient flow,
admission and screening.
•Enabling improved
delegation and response to
critical clinical events.

Basic Requirements
The implementation of EHRs would require (Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia, 2012).
•Collaborative discussion between various healthcare committees.
•Reviewing with National and well as International health
professionals.
•Educational workshops.
•Obtaining organizational data.
•Meetings with healthcare organizations.

Key Challenges and Issues
Some of the key challenges include (Goldstein et al.,
2017):
•Interoperability: Faulty interface of EHRs
•Usability: Lack of confidence and knowledge staff
on EHR usage
•Health Information Technology Safety: Hindrances
to patient privacy during security breaches.

Policy Regulatory
drivers for Guidance
The following standards and policies
are recognized by the MOH (Ministry
of Health, 2019).
•Patient Centric Approach
•Population Health Status and
Indicators of Patient Safety and
Health Outcomes
•Clinical and Business Processes
Application Systems
•Information Management,
Information Security and Privacy
Interoperability
•Physical and Technical
Infrastructure Network

Standards and Policies for EHR implementation

Technology
Standards
The standards of
technology required for
the implementation of
EHR usage will be guided
by the Information and
Communications
Technology (ICT) sector of
Saudi Arabia (Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia, 2012).

Recommendations
EHR usage can be
improved by (Gellert,
Ramirez & Webster, 2015):
•Feedback and evaluation
•Nursing curriculum
modification
•Increased staff training
•Integration of clinical and
IT departments

Conclusion
Hence to conclude, EHRs pose to
be a novel strategy for
improvement of patient safety
and healthcare deliverance.
However, existing EHR
implementation consists of
several limitations in terms of
safety, usability and
interoperability. Increased
training, communication,
education and feedback are key
recommendations to combat
these limitations.