EHRs have reached tipping point--now what?

Healthcare has reached the tipping point with more than half of eligible professionals and 80 percent of eligible hospitals having adopted EHRs. Now, the question is what needs to happen next for EHRs and their users to reach their full potential.

The March Journal of AHIMA cover story aims to answer that question.

“The heavy adoption of EHRs by providers is a significant milestone, one that can contribute to improved patient outcomes at reduced costs,” said AHIMA CEO Lynne Thomas Gordon, MBA, RHIA, CAE. “HIM professionals will play an important role in realizing the efficiencies offered by interoperable EHRs, and a key component will be establishing information governance principles to ensure the information is accurate, appropriately accessible and actionable.”

In the article, Judy Murphy, RN, FACMI, deputy national coordinator for programs and policy at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, drew an analogy between EHR interoperability and advances in telecommunications. “If you buy a telephone, it’s only as good as the other people who have telephones and can call,” she said. “One of the things we’re doing with getting EHRs installed is that we’re setting up the capabilities and electronically exchanging the information so we can create a patient-centric record.”

Read the article: “Healthcare Reaches the EHR Tipping Point”

The March issue of the Journal of AHIMA also includes an article on the challenges and opportunities social media presents to healthcare and an updated practice brief on privacy and security audits of electronic health information, which defines and explains the necessary components for a successful security audit strategy and outlines considerations for legal and regulatory requirements, how to evaluate and retain audit logs and the overall audit process.