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The Pros And Cons Of Electronic Medical Records

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Our health care system has come a long way over the years to the point where it is now streamlined, standardized and regulated. Since the emergence of computers in the nineteen seventies, our medical records are now to the point that they are connected to hospitals and clinics nationwide. With the push of a button, a physician in Chicago can obtain your medical records in Florida to help the medical professional treat your illness as well as look at your past medical history. It is with the health information technology for economic and clinical health act, or known as HITECH, that has helped us standardize our electronic medical records in a more organized fashion. Established under HIPPA, the HITECH act went into effect on September 23, …show more content…

(David Blumethal) They help the physician make decisions on how to care for the patient in their time of need. Some of the features of EHR’s are that they track care and outcomes, trigger warnings, digitally format information to be used over secured networks, as well as send and receive reports. (David Blumethal) Ambulances are now starting to integrate EHR systems for the first responder paramedics to utilize during emergency situations. Doctors, physicians and healthcare providers are now able to view EHR’s at any time, but with this great freedom comes privacy concerns about how is looking at your medical records and why. Recent outbreaks of data breaches have worried some about the integrity of their health information, as well as their financial information that is linked together in these records. (David …show more content…

Gabrielle Giffords shooting. This tragic event happened on January 08, 2011 when a disturbed gunman, Jared Lee Loughner, attended the “Congress on Your Corner” event in the parking lot of a Safeway store (Hensley) He opened fire shooting Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in the head and then proceeded to fire upon eighteen random people that were in attendance to hear Gabrielle speak. (Hensley) This tragic incident of course made national news, but a part of the story that the general population wasn’t aware of was that four hospital employees were fired at the University Medical Center in Tucson in Arizona for snooping on confidential computerized medical records of patients injured in the shooting (Hensley). This is a clear violation of the HIPPA act. According to the article by Scott Hensley, hospitals now create fictitious celebrity medical records at bait for untrustworthy employees. (Hensley) Hospital computer specialists then monitor who access the files, and then take the appropriate disciplinary actions. (Hensley) A quote from his article that rounds up the whole situation is “Computerized systems for patients charts can help hospitals do a better job with care. But they also make the protection of information from prying eyes harder”. (Hensley) We have seen this happen many times over the years with celebrities such as Britney Spears and Kim

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