Comprehensive Evaluation of My Health Record System

This paper assesses the My Health Record (MHR) system, highlighting its capabilities like clinical documentation, secure storage, geographical accessibility, reference platform utilization, and medication management. Challenges such as data conversion, organization difficulties, trust issues, and implementation costs are discussed. Benefits include enhanced patient care, reduced hassle for patients, cost savings, secure data keeping, and global accessibility.

Running head: ASSESSMENT OF MY HEALTH RECORD
ASSESSMENT OF MY HEALTH RECORD
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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My health record:
Capabilities:
My health record (MHR) possesses multiple capabilities that are of assistance in the
healthcare industry (Turvey et al., 2012). The capabilities are discussed as follows:
 Clinical documentation:
The deemed technology offers clinical workflow through electronic interaction between
the patients and the healthcare units and associates. In the discussed process, the patient’s
data are shared by electronic means to the healthcare units and vice versa. It also omits the
chances of data degradation or lost unlike paper documents.
 Secure Storage for documents:
Information are the most essential asset in today’s cyber age and hence, the deemed
technology has ensured to keep the data safe and secure. The deemed objective is achieved by
keeping the data encrypted and providing unique identification to the people registered in the
database of the technology. Additionally, appropriate authentication options are available for
registered patients and healthcare providers in the technology to avoid trespassing. The
safekeeping of data even enables the patients to keep their data safe for future use.
 Large Geographical approach:
One of the most significant capability of the deemed technology is its large geographical
approach. The reason for such large geographical approach of the service is its association
with the ICT (Information and Communication Technology) and hence, enabling access of
the patient’s data from geographical distant locations with appropriate authentication details.
 Reference Platform:

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“eHealth Reference Platform (eHRP) is a clinically-validated technical simulation of the
key digital health systems in Australia.” ("eHealth Reference Platform - Australian Digital
Health Agency", 2018). The deemed platform offers the healthcare providers and the
participants opportunity to demonstrate, test and enhance their capabilities in the healthcare
industry. New software or medical techniques can also be evaluated over the deemed
platform while maintaining the safe practices of the testing.
 Managing e-medication:
The deemed technology has not limited itself only to monitoring, exchange and
safekeeping of the data but further enhanced its capability to the inventory management.
MHR manages the processes involved in prescription, administration, dispense and monitors
of the medicines. The deemed technology also reminds the medication dose and times while
measuring the impact on the patient. However, the above mentioned details must be manually
added to the database.
Problems:
The talked about technology is still developing and hence it has some problems
associated with it (Wu et al., 2013). An insight of the problems that are associated with the
MHR has been discussed as follows:
 Developing e-data:
One of the central issue associated with the deemed technology is the conversion of the
data from the paper text format to the electronic mode. The reason for the above stated
statement is based on the fact that not every individual is comfortable with the computing
systems and even the length and complexity involved in the process can prove to be
troublesome for them.

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 Organising the data:
Organising the data as per the priority level is also one, of the difficulties associated with
the talked about technology. The patients are the ones, who created their health record and
commonly, they are unaware of the medical terms and the seriousness associated with those
words making it difficult for them to organise the data.
 Trust issues:
One of the significant issues with the MHR is the trust issues that the patients and
their associates possesses. The deemed technology is based on the electronic medium
which leads the people to consider potential cyber threats which may lead to loss of data
or even manipulation of the data which may lead to improper medication.
 Implementation cost:
The deemed technology may be cost saving in the long term however, the cost of
implementation is not affordable for many healthcare units. The reason for that is the cost of
buying new equipment, cloud services and skills to operate the deemed technology.
Additionally, the system demands upgrade periodically to remove potential bugs and enhance
its capabilities which is also taken in consideration by the healthcare service providers.
Benefits:
The deemed technology offers multiple benefits to the patient and the healthcare
units, the most significant of them has been discussed as follows (Woods et al., 2013):
 The deemed technology enhances effective caring of the patients; the reason for the
stated fact lies on the fact that the subject reduces the time spent on organising the
health reports rather that time is spend on attending and evaluating the patient.

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 Reduces hassle; the patient does not have to attend the doctor’s session each time with
all the reports as the information of the patient are electronically transferred to the
doctor of expertise who after evaluation of the report sets an appointment for physical
tests and medication process.
 Saves money; the deemed technology as discussed earlier has the capability of
managing inventory has saving money for both the healthcare units and the patient.
Additionally, transfer of the data electronically saves the transportation and mailing
costs. The data of the patient’s progress are regularly updated which saves the cost of
regular testing.
 Safekeeping of the data; use of the medical record of a patient are not only limited to
the current state of the patient but can even prove to be useful in future, in case the
same situation arises or even to maintain a sound health. Hence, it is necessary to
maintain the records which can get lost or can even deteriorate. However, the deemed
undesired situation can be avoided if the data is maintained in electronic medium
which is where MHR comes in assistance.
 Globally accessible; an individual can get sick at any instant and anywhere however,
it is not feasible for that individual to carry their health record everyplace to receive
proper medication based on those records. Contradicting to the physical health records
an individual can access MHR from any place in the world with just proper
authorisation initials and can even receive medication recommendations from their
trusted healthcare.
Apart from the above mentioned benefits MHR offers several other advantage to the
patient and even to the healthcare units. Hence, it is advisable to have a MHR (my health
record) for self.

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References:
eHealth Reference Platform - Australian Digital Health Agency.
(2018). Digitalhealth.gov.au. Retrieved 11 March 2018, from
https://www.digitalhealth.gov.au/get-started-with-digital-health/what-is-digital-
health/features-of-the-my-health-record-system/ehealth-reference-platform
Turvey, C. L., Zulman, D. M., Nazi, K. M., Wakefield, B. J., Woods, S. S., Hogan, T. P., ...
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Woods, S. S., Schwartz, E., Tuepker, A., Press, N. A., Nazi, K. M., Turvey, C. L., & Nichol,
W. P. (2013). Patient experiences with full electronic access to health records and
clinical notes through the My HealtheVet Personal Health Record Pilot: qualitative
study. Journal of medical Internet research, 15(3).
Wu, A. W., Kharrazi, H., Boulware, L. E., & Snyder, C. F. (2013). Measure once, cut twice
—adding patient-reported outcome measures to the electronic health record for
comparative effectiveness research. Journal of clinical epidemiology, 66(8), S12-S20.