First we enabled the adoption of many elements of HIPAA which streamlined the process of how your doctors process medical requests or payments from your health plan. HIPAA was adopted to help protect your privacy; security was adopted to make sure your medical information is kept safe on computers. Another component of HIPAA was adoption of the Transactions and Code Sets. The TCS are a standard by which electronic claims, claims status, enrollment, eligibility type transactions are communicated from your doctor to health plans. They were a big step in moving toward the EHR. The National Identifiers are being adopted as well. Now enacted under the current Administrations budget the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) for IT Demonstration Projects. One of the stated missions of the AHRQ is to advance the use of information technology for coordinating patient care and conducting quality and outcomes studies.
President Bush announced his support for interoperable electronic health records in his March 2003 address to the American Medical Association (AMA). The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) has taken a leadership position in improving the quality and efficiency of healthcare through information technology.
What Is The EHR?
Did you ever wonder why every time you go to the doctor you have to fill out mainly the same information each time?
Each time the documents are just a little different but ask almost the same health background information for your doctor.
The EHR, once fully adopted, would enable your electronically protected health information to be entered into the computer once by your doctor's office or hospital.
Why The EHR?
By enabling the EHR, doctors, hospitals and health plans can continue to streamline your medical encounter. Your doctor can enter your health information once which can eliminate many errors. The EHR also helps doctors by keeping all that information available to improve their ability to diagnose your medical needs more effectively and efficiently. Currently many Emergency Rooms need your medical information to be able to treat you when you need it the most.
Conclusion
By the healthcare industry adopting the enablement of EHR's the goal is to improve overall medical needs for all.