Maselli Electronic Health Record

Electronic health records are essential in allowing physicians to monitor their patients’ health, notice trends, and potentially prevent hospital readmissions, quickly diagnose diseases, and reduce medical errors.

This is the first in a series of blog posts where we ask the question “What is Meaningful Use of an EHR?”

In this post, we interview a physician at a family practice to learn more about how he is meaningfully using his EHR to coordinate patient care, prevent a hospital readmission and ultimately improve patient health.

On the day we spoke, Dr. Frank Maselli of Riverdale Family Practice in the Bronx had just finished seeing 30 patients. In at 8 a.m., done by 2 p.m. It was a fairly typical day for a not-so-typical family practice.

Maselli doesn’t practice.

While talking with the last patient, who is trying to recover from pneumonia, Dr. Maselli logged into the Bronx Regional Health Information Organization (Bronx RHIO), and was able to download the discharge notes for the patient. While reviewing the note, Dr. Maselli realized that the patient was not following the discharge instructions and was able to talk to him about the importance of following the discharge regimen exactly.

Maselli explains that it is just him and his wife, so there are no adult children to help him follow the regimen.

In the midst of our conversation, Dr. Maselli came to an important realization and his electronic medical record was a large part of the reason why.

EHRs Are Reducing Hospital