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Nurse Recounts Benefits of EHRs Throughout Career

In honor of Nurse’s Week, Health IT Buzz recently featured one nurse’s story about her experience with electronic health records (EHRs). In “National Nurses Week 2013: Health IT is Essential to Optimal Care”, Elizabeth “Betsy” Frederick reflects on her nursing career and the development of EHRs over the years.

Noting that she began using computers to track patient information in 1992, Frederick strongly advocates the integration of computer technology into healthcare record keeping. She notes that with EHRs, she is able to review much more patient information more efficiently, which in turn makes her a better nurse. She continues:

“The EHR improves efficiency, accountability, clinical performance, care quality and even patient satisfaction. The EHR is a central tool we use at Martin’s Point to help us improve quality of the care we provide to our patients…. My advice to providers just starting down the health IT journey is not to wait. It’s a lot of work, but in the end it helps you give the best care possible. The brain can’t remember everything. Using health IT can help and is key to providing optimal care.”

Fredrick’s experience and advocacy of EHRs is proof that technology has a place in healthcare administration and that automating certain tasks frees up nurses to do what they do best. Automated indexing programs like Access Integrity’s ICDTagger, for example, reduce the risk of human coding error while improving workflow for nurses and administrators. It is also a productive way for healthcare providers to follow Frederick’s advice and begin transitioning to EHRs.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.org

Samantha Plappert, May 20, 2013

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