Is EHR usage overstressing physicians?

‘Doctors have too busy schedule. Before, doctors used to make a hand-written prescription. But since they have to examine so many patients at a time, the handwriting became illegible. This illegible handwriting gave birth to the process of medical transcription where to put down doctor's effort as well as the burden of paperwork, EHR came into focus with its advanced data keeping system. EHR system helps to record patient's data as well as the conversation between a patient and a doctor for improving the quality of treatment as well as to improve the documentation process. But this has been noticed that there are many doctors who do not feel to recommend EHR to their junior doctors. It seems that many doctors are facing trouble with the usage of EHR and this is just because this particular system requires manual input of data where doctors really feel overstressed. Rather than examining patients, they get busy with the documentation process which consumes time and their effort. Doctors get too little time for the documentation process and they have to fill the records format even after coming back home which creates misbalance in their personal life too. It becomes hectic for a doctor to examine so many patients and then fill the records. This becomes so stressful. Of course there are advantages of EHR system like it reduces the burden of paperwork management, quality care and patient's accessibility. But you will be astonished knowing the facts or disadvantages of an EHR system.

Do you know how this EHR system negatively impact upon health professionals? Let’s have a look………

·         Since patients can access all their data like date of admission, health records or history, details of ongoing treatment, medication, details of suspected disease and diagnosis thus these create a panic among the patient. They come back to the doctor and the doctor then has to deal with their panic which really gives stress to a doctor.

·         Patient's data must be recorded with proper privacy and security. But the EHR system is too susceptible to hacking. The malpractitioners or a hacker hack all the data for which information related to patient's data becomes invisible to the doctors, patients and to the hospital management. This creates not only a delay in the entire treatment process but it may also direct a doctor for the wrong treatment. On the emergency situation, it becomes difficult for a doctor to treat a patient when the patient's data is hacked.

·         Each and every time the data must be uploaded in real-time that is immediately after a patient’s visit. Delaying in that process may delay the process of service and service providers may have to rely upon incomplete data. Examining a patient and then at the same time uploading all the details becomes hectic for a doctor as they have to always rush for the next patient.

So, though EHR has a positive impact upon the healthcare services, it is always imperative to know the disadvantages of this system which may potentially interrupt with the healthcare services.

Is EHR a potent threat for medical transcription industry?

EHR is one of the upcoming trends in digitized healthcare services. Its full form is Electronic Health Records which entails the recording of the patient data in a real-time scenario. It involves documenting the patient medical history and their diagnosis as well as their current treatment and their allergic tendencies. Thus it is beneficial to a doctor as well as patient to use the EHR whole keeping the information safe and secured. 

Accuracy and speed

The main threat that EHR poses to the medical transcription is that EHR is accurate and can be operated both by the patient and the physician. It is also a very speedy process due to its real-time attribute. In contrast, medical transcription does not provide the real-time data input and data sharing option. 

Cost

In this aspect medical transcription gets leverage as compared to EHR. EHR is a costly process that involves the use of software for documentation and real-time data sharing and processing. 

With the application of EHR, the patient data entry has been modified to specialized formats changing the role of a transcriptionist. However there has been long term argument on the fact that "Can EHR be a better option than medical transcription?..some believe that due to its better technological upgradation and real-time approach it is far more preferable. On the contrary, some healthcare professionals feel that EHR usage consumes a lot of time of the physicians. Apart from this EHR requires effective patient data maintenance which is not done by most of the healthcare organizations. Thus EHR can never be a replaceable option to medical transcription. In addition, EHR might not have all the provisions to record patient diagnosis. This, on the contrary, is available in case of ICD 10 based medical transcription. 

Thus it can be finally summed up and inferred that EHR although being perceived as a threat to medical transcription can be taken as an upgradation to the whole process. With the advent of speech recognition, voice recordings are converted to textual formats. These textual formats are then fed into the EHR system. This can be achieved by training of the transcriptionists in their updated job role. This will thus ensure effective patient data documentation and holistic patient care with digitized approaches. 

5 digitalized healthcare services that need further innovation and updation

The advancement of digital technology has contributed a lot in the field of the healthcare management system. Before, all the healthcare related work especially the most important work that is the documentation process was done by the doctors. They were the in-charge of each and every documentation. But there is a common problem as we know that the misinterpretation of patient’s data because of the illegible handwriting of the doctors and other medical staffs, technological advancement got applied here. The digital system and its application in the field of healthcare management system have brought a new wave. Of course the digitalized healthcare services have touched the sky of advancement but there is more innovation that can be done to some services. Let's have look….

·  Have you lost your prescription? Unable to visit a new doctor without your previous prescription?

Besides the marvelous advancement of digital technology, inefficiencies are still there in the healthcare management system. There are still many hospital and clinics that still follow the pen-paper work and make a massive documentation process in this way which creates a confusing data management process. It highly causes regression for waste. For this, not only the patients who suffer from the inconveniences but also the management authorities face challenges in maintaining big data. It increases expenses, as well as the chances of errors, get increased. In the advanced technological system, though the majority of the healthcare center has adopted cloud-based data sharing process but it needs to be improvised more. To reduce the load of paper work and to securely share patient’s data especially at the time of shifting a patient from one hospital to another hospital, all the patient data must be exchanged correctly with the new service providers. Blockchain-based data sharing process is the most effective and secure data sharing process. This helps in a complete transfer of patient’s data with maintaining the privacy and integrity of the valuable information.

·  Access your health record in one click

Apart from the storage of patient's data, it is also imperative to properly retrieve data on time. Loads of data and its improper management create trouble in the diagnosis process. This highly requires storage in the cloud-based system and also requires access through the mobile application process where patient's data would be easily accessible to both the doctors and to the patient as well. This real-time data accessibility like registration time, patient's history, appointments, diagnosis, treatments, medication every minute details needs to be updated in real-time. We all know mobile has become our extended body parts so using mobile application would make the process more flexible.

· Why doctors are wasting their time in documentation process? Want to know the alternative system?

Doctor's main job is to treat patients. But documentation is also important. This has been found that the majority of the doctors spend their time in making the documentation parts rather than treating patient. They take a lot of time to enter all the patient's notes to the EHR system. Of course, EHR system plays an imperative part where medical transcriptionist easily converts patient's data into the text format. But, manually filling up the data especially when doctors puts the test results manually, takes a lot of time. In this case, innovation must be done. Instead of entering the data manually, a small innovation by implementing artificial intelligence will be very effective. This can directly import the test results by the help of software and this can also help to prescribe advice or reminder to the health physicians to cut down the burden of excessive tests. On the other hand, appointment and in other administrative work, AI can be implemented to increase the proficiency of the work.

· Feeling tired? Don’t want to visit a doctor? You still can get treatment from your doctor saving your time for a trip to the doctor

Now you don't need to visit your doctor for your regular checkup. We know that this is the 4G times. The technological replacement with 5G mobile technology can easily help you out where sitting at home you can avail healthcare services. Want to know how? This is the high time to adopt 5G mobile broadband that has eMBB data and hyper-connectivity that will help doctors to get virtually connected with their patient. They can even access required medical data by the hyper-connectivity of 5G and by implementing Internet Medical Things (IoMT).

·  Paying medical bills from your pocket even after having a mediclaim policy? Improve your mediclaim process today…..

There are so many people who are regularly slogging to get their claims. It becomes so difficult that when you're supposed to take care of your patients, you are forced to take care of medical bills. Even after having mediclaims, it does not pay out the bills as it wastes its time in the investigation process. This process is laborious and time consuming for both the clinicians and the company. Improvement in the digitalized information-intensive process can cut down the labor cost as well as can make the process faster. These automated insurance services will help in faster reimbursement of the claim as they do not need to haunt for specific data.