Electronic Health Records
Working in the healthcare industry is the foundation of managing the electronic health records. Besides, working in healthcare industry comes with increased rewards in terms of electronic health records management. The healthcare industry is in demand and continues to grow as many diseases crop up that require intellectual skills. There seems to be hardly uninteresting instants in the healthcare industry.
The experiences are always exciting, changing, dramatic and fast paced with new potentials emerging each day. Jobs are also available for all workers with varying education and experience levels. As a result, healthcare career provides various options for people as well as better job security and stability. An imperative component of the healthcare industry is that one makes an impact on people’s lives by either bringing new life or saving life.
With the evolution in technology, the current trend to move from paper medical records to the Electronic Health Records (EHR) creates new challenges. Electronic health records are computer-based patient records that may be distributed across multiple sites including demographics, medical history, medication and allergies, lab test results and immunization status (Ammenwerth 37).
Most electronic health records capture the state of the patient at all times and enables the patient history to be viewed at once. In fact, EHR ensures that data is accurate, appropriate, legible, and reduces the chances of data replication. The patient’s medical history and relevant information can be stored in a single file, which increases the accessibility and usability by the medical practitioners (Ammenwerth 23).
The job is a full-time position in an office environment with one working in the physician bureaus, sick bays, treatment habitats, indemnity corporations, state-health organizations and tumor registry. The duties involve inputting medical reports from physical charts into the electronic records in secure databases, managing medical reports, reviewing patients’ physical charts, entering data and verifying if it was entered correctly (Perednia 19).
In order to be a health-information technician, a worker requires great preparation. In fact, the duties require interpersonal intelligence, attention to detail, a high degree of integrity and patience. In case one needs to develop a career in health care, at the high school level, a student must take courses in Computer, Mathematics, Health and Biology (Rodrigues 29). However, to be a registered health information technician, a person must take an associate degree in applied science with a specialization in Health Information Technology from an accredited organization. The assignments range from medical terminology to database maintenance (Blumenthal and Tavenner 502).
After completing an accredited training program in EHR, the candidate is then eligible to sit for a registered health-information technician examination. Though the certification is not compulsory, one may have better chances after becoming certified technician. After a few years of experience, an individual can specialize in various areas like medical transcription and cancer registry (Maki and Petterson 51).
The EHR career is in high demand given that it has just been introduced, and health care institutions are trying to embrace technology. Though the salary is based on many factors such as the physical location, education and health care facility, the salary package is attractive. According to the US Bureau of Labor statistics, the average wage in the fiscal 2013 was $37,710 per annum but ranged from as low as $22,700 to as high as $ 57,320. The career is suitable for the light-hearted in the health care industry. Nonetheless, one has no direct patient contact but may speak with the provider to verify the records (Jha and DesRoches 1632).
The disadvantage of this healthcare career is that one has to be continuously updated with information on current technologies. The initial cost for setting up the program is also quite expensive (Thomas-Brogan 26). Besides, there may be data breaches that may reveal vital information about a patient and cause damage.
Though electronic health record career may have some challenges, it is an important breakthrough in the healthcare industry. In fact, electronic health record will enable healthcare professionals to access patient information across multiple sites and even allow them to consult on the way forward.
Works Cited
Ammenwerth, Hoerbs. “Electronic Health Records.” A Systematic Review on Quality Requirements, 2010. Print.
Blumenthal, David and Marilyn Tavenner. “The “Meaningful Use” Regulation for Electronic Health Records.” The New England Journal of Medicine 363.2 (2010): 501-504. Print.
Jha, Ashish, and Catherine DesRoches. Use of Electronic Health Records in U.S. Hospitals’. The New England Journal of Medicine 360.2 (2009): 1628-1638. Print.
Maki, Shirley and Bonnie Petterson. Using the Electronic Health Record in the Health Care Provider Practice. Cengage Learning, 2012. Print.
Perednia, Douglas A. Overhauling America’s Healthcare Machine: Stop the Bleeding and Save Trillions. Upper Saddle River: NJ, FT Press, 2011. Print.
Rodrigues, Joel. Health Information Systems: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications Volume 1. Hershey, PA; IGI Global, 2009. Print.
Thomas-Brogan, Teri. Health Information Technology Basics: A Concise Guide to Principles and Practice. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2009. Print.