A Culture of Safety Health, Medicine, Nursing Research Paper

Electronic Health Records as a Culture of Safety 
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Abstract
Electronic Health Records (EHR) are used in healthcare systems to improve patient safety as well as aiding physicians in effecting quality healthcare to patients. EHR encompasses a wide range of patient information such as diagnosis results, vital signs, laboratory data, medications, and demographics, which can be retrieved by physicians to help make health care more accessible to patients. In general, EHR not only refers to the mere digitalization of the medical data of patients but rather, it is designed to optimize the quality of care offered to patients. The system has also helped patients to be in control of their data. However, the adoption of EHR can disrupt workflows in the first few months, and it is expensive since it requires the institutions to buy and pay for the installation of hardware and software, train their employees, pay for maintenance, and constantly update the data. More so, digital information greatly attracts hackers who might want to sell the information to interested parties for quick cash. Nonetheless, the efficiency and effectiveness of EHR have proven that the system is much more useful than disadvantageous.
Keywords: Electronic Health Record, EHR, Quality Healthcare
A Culture of Safety
Patient safety has been an important priority for healthcare providers for a long time. Errors associated with patient identification are one of the most severe global healthcare quality issues for patient safety. Every healthcare unit strives to ensure that the right patient gains access to the treatment that is rightfully theirs. Because of the risks that are brought about by mismatch and wrongful identification of patients, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations has highly prioritized patient identification as one of their Patient Safety Goals since 2003 (Joint Commission, 2017). All care settings routinely carry out patient identification activities to match patients to their intended treatment (ACSQHC, 2018). Failure to accurately match patients to the components of their care regardless of whether the components are diagnostic, supportive or therapeutic, can pose a great risk to the safety of the patient. In the entire healthcare, lack of proper patient identification and wrongfully matching patients to clinical interventions result in wrong site procedures, diagnostic tests, transfusion errors, and medication transfusion.
By acknowledging the fact that patient identification is posing a great risk to patient safety, a wide range of strategies has been proposed to help improve the safety of patients. The majority of these proposals rely heavily on the use of technology. Electronic Health Records (EHRs) are an example of how information technology has been useful in improving patient safety. EHRs have been widely adopted over the past ten years in both outpatient and inpatient settings. The EHR system comprises of an electronic patient chart and functionality for medical device interface, imaging and laboratory reporting, and computerized provider order entry. Essentially, the EHR system establishes an enduring, comprehensive, seam...