Abstract
Among health care information systems, past research has credited Electronic Medical Records (EMR) systems with offering the greatest potential for improving quality within health care environments. Benefits range from reducing errors to cutting overall health care costs. For instance, the utility of an EMR system will allow physicians’ enterprise wide access to a patient’s entire medical chart, monitor patients’ care for possible drug interaction, proactively prompt doctor(s) with recommended treatment, provide clinical decision support, simplify record keeping, e-prescription, documented referrals, and reminders to patients and health care providers. In this article, we present the results from our study. The next section highlights challenges associated with EMR adoption and use. We conclude by suggesting solutions geared towards lessening these challenges thereby clearing the path for successful EMR adoption and use.
Key Terms in this Chapter
IS Adoption: The deployment of information systems within an organization.
Electronic Medical Records System: An interorganizational information system that captures the essential components of a patient’s medical encounter with the medical provider, including storage and retrieval of subjective, objective patient information, assessment, and plans for patient care (Lenhart et al., 2000).
EMR Challenges: Any factor that would impede the adoption and use of EMR.
Health Care Information System: An arrangement of information technology, people, data, and processes that interact to gather, process, store, and disseminate health care information (adapted from Whitten & Bentley, 2007).