Electronic Health Records

While EHR has the potential to improve health care quality and patient satisfaction, the Board also understands that the documentation can seem limitless, and the patient care provider, the most expensive and time stressed link in health care, may become overwhelmed with data entry tasks. It will take the entire health care system – from software developers to health care organizations and providers in every health care profession – to work to optimize EHR as a tool for providing efficient, patient-centered care while minimizing interference in traditional provider-patient interaction.

The federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in 1996 led to additional laws¹ mandating electronic medical records. These laws aim to standardize insurance claims, to make medical records more portable, and to eliminate medical errors. Electronic health records (EHR) were expected to improve patient care and empower patients with increased access to their own medical information. Charged with protecting the health, safety, and wellbeing of Oregon citizens, the Oregon Medical Board expects licensees to meet the standard of care in medical recordkeeping, which may require licensees to hone computer skills and adapt to EHR systems.

 

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1. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) of 2009.