Electronic Medical Record System: Current Status and Its Use to Support Universal Healthcare System

INTRODUCTION Medical technologies are booming and are adopted at alarming rates; however, the case is not true for information technology within healthcare. The healthcare industry lags behind most mainstream industries with regard to information technologies (Burt & Sisk, 2005). Banking and hospitality industries, both of which share similarities with the healthcare industry, realized the need for information technology several years ago, committed to the technology through budgeting and planning, and have successfully implemented these technologies within various businesses. Within healthcare, the need for information technology is well known. However, the commitment to information technology is still very limited. U.S. hospital spending on information technology should hit $4.7 billion by the end of 2009, when HIMSS Analytics, Chicago published it report in early August, 2009, the latest of such figure available. It will grow to $6.8 billion by 2014, at a compounded annual growth rate of 7.5%, the report says (Anderson, 2009). This amount still represents a small percentage of healthcare industry's revenue. However, three-quarters of companies have chosen to devote more revenues to information technology for the coming years. There are many areas for information technology improvements in healthcare. One of the greatest areas for improvement in information technology is in the implementation of an electronic health system based on the use of electronic medical records (EMR), also known as automated medical records and many other name such as clinical data repository, computer-based patient record, computer-based patient record system, computer-based patient record-type system, computerized medical record, computerized patient record, electronic health record, electronic patient record, lifetime data repository, virtual health record, or virtual patient record. Since federal government already mandated all healthcare providers to implement EMR system, the question confront individual healthcare provider is longer if but how and which implementation strategy to adopt (O'Brien, 2006; Thielst, 2007; Hoffmann, 2009). In this paper, we start by reviewing the evolution of the EMR system. The adoption dilemma faced by healthcare institutions management will then be explored. Management implications of implementing EMRs will then be discussed together with an investigation into the alternative policies. As the new universal healthcare system became the law, how to ensure that the new healthcare system becomes a cost effective alternative of today's healthcare system will be the most critical challenge. A framework of integrating the EMRs of each individual healthcare providers is proposed to illustrate how EMR could be the vital foundation for the new universal healthcare system. Major findings of this study and some important directions for future study will then conclude this paper. REVIEW OF EMR EVOLUTION Electronic medical records are computerized medical records for individual patients which are available to all with approved access on a designated network. In general, an electronic health system with electronic medical records is openly welcome (Hie, Van Slyke, Parikh, & Courtney, 2009; Kazley & Ozcan, 2009). In a recent study by the Markle Foundation, 72% of polled Americans favor electronic health records as long as their information was secure and their privacy was assured. The benefits of an electronic health system with electronic medical records are well documented (Detmer & Shotliffe, 1997; Khoury, 1997; Maxwell, 1999; Ragbupathi & Tan, 2002; Morris, 2004; Anderson, 2005; Brown, 2005; Swatz, 2005; Walker, 2005; Hagland, 2006). Benefits of improvements in HIT include easier access to patients' health histories, improved patient satisfaction, improved provider satisfaction, improved patient safety through a reduction in medical errors, faster and more efficient emergency care, reduce healthcare costs by reducing duplicate testing and other administrative costs, reduction in paperwork, elimination of lost and misfiled reports, and improved quality of care as information on best-practices for treatments, drugs, or surgeries is readily shared, etc. …