Electronic Health Record Migration Path

Electronic Health Record Migration Path

Electronic health records (EHRs) are essential in promoting the quality of care delivery. EHRs contain medical information of the patient. Most of the crucial details provided in EHRs include medical history, medical conditions, results from laboratory sets, and follow-up details. The Medical Center of DeVry provides a 200-bed acute-care, which requires effective management of information. Although the Medical Center of DeVry has taken significant steps in the EHR migration path, the facility should enhance the clarity of responsibility, set objectives, and adopt tight control and feedback procedures.

The major strength in the Medical Center of DeVry’s EHR migration path is the diversification of the sources of patient’s information. For instance, the current systems available at the hospital include radiology and laboratory information systems and release information. The three schemes are essential in enhancing the quality of the care provided by the nurses. The strategy ensures that health practitioners access timely and accurate knowledge of the patient. Useful EHRs require information to flow from diverse sources like pharmacy, laboratory, radiology, transcription, and billing, among others (Dolezel & Moczygemba, 2015). A hospital establishes electronic systems that can track all the information of a patient. The strategy leads to enhanced service delivery. Therefore, the Medical Center of DeVry has made significant steps towards the implementation of the EHR migration path by obtaining information from different sources.

The presence of chart tracking in the Medical Center of DeVry’s EHR migration path presents unmatched strengths. In healthcare practice, patients and members of staff experience frustrations because of disrupted workflows and inability to locate full charts (Dolezel & Moczygemba, 2015). The Medical Center of DeVry focuses on addressing this problem by establishing effective ways to find essential charts. Besides, the approach will ease the process of locating relevant information and making critical decisions. Therefore, the Medical Center of DeVry enhances the effectiveness of EHR through better chart tracking approaches.

The medical Center of DeVry may not attain the desired outcomes after adopting the EHR due to unclear responsibilities. The hospital should identify a coordinator of the EHR migration program to enhance the level of effectiveness (Lorenzi, Kouroubali, Detmer, & Bloomrosen, 2009). The person must have the ability and motivation to oversee the implementation of the strategy. In this case, the hospital will manage to establish a defined line responsibility. For instance, the management at the hospital can question the coordinator for the failed implementation of the core goals (Lorenzi, Kouroubali, Detmer, & Bloomrosen, 2009). This statement reinforces the need to rely on a clear line of communication in implementing the project. Therefore, the medical Center of DeVry should reconsider redefining the core objectives of every employee in the EHR program based on clear goals.

The medical Center of DeVry should consider setting more explicit objectives for establishing the EHR program. The first step in managing the digitization project is to set realistic goals and timelines to achieve them (Lorenzi, Kouroubali, Detmer, & Bloomrosen, 2009). The management at the hospital needs to establish the purpose of adopting EHR strategies. The method will enhance the identification of all the necessary sources of information that may improve care delivery. Setting goals enables all the parties involved to attain a moral commitment to oversee the program (Lorenzi, Kouroubali, Detmer, & Bloomrosen, 2009). This approach will ensure that nurses and other care providers take an active part in implementing all the necessary steps. Failure to establish clear goals has made the medical Center of DeVry to omit health records as a source of information, which may result in possible failure. Therefore, setting clear goals and deadlines to achieve them may enhance the effectiveness of the EHR migration plan.

The third recommendation that the hospital should consider is adopting tight control and feedback procedures. Effective project implementation relies on clear ways to obtain timely feedback on the status of every stage of application (Lorenzi, Kouroubali, Detmer, & Bloomrosen, 2009). This method may lead to the effective detection of problems in the execution of the plan. Other benefits include the recognition of positive and negative deviations from the procedure. Therefore, adopting a strict method to control the EHRs and obtaining the necessary feedback can enhance the overall outcomes.

In summary, the Medical Center of DeVry has taken significant steps in the EHR migration path. The considerable strengths include diversification of information sources and the presence of chart tracks. However, this health facility should enhance the clarity of responsibility and set clear objectives for the project. These two recommendations will enable the hospital to identify all the possible sources of patients’ data. Besides, adopting tight control and feedback procedures enhances the ability to identify potential challenges and deviations from the core objective.