Electronic health records (EHRs) are an invaluable tool to doctors of all specialties, but there are a number of reasons why they offer unique value to dermatologists.
In 2009, Congress passed the Health Information Technology for Economics and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, procuring nearly $30 billion to promote and incentivize the adoption of electronic health records (EHRs). At the time of HITECH’s passage, 48.3% of office-based physicians reported having “Any EHR,” and only 21.8% of such physicians claimed to have “Basic EHR.” By the end of 2015, these figures had jumped to 86.9% and 53.9% respectively, confirming that HITECH was a necessary step in keeping practitioners aligned with the prevailing winds of change in the healthcare industry.
There are a number of factors that have contributed to this rapid acceleration in EHR adoption over the last several years, but foremost among them is the simple fact that EHRs make medicine easier, more efficient, and more effective for all parties involved.
Understanding the Power of EHRs
Most obviously, EHRs offer healthcare professionals logistical and analytical capabilities far superior to even the most refined pen-and-paper system. When doctors enter exam data into their device of choice, the data is immediately archived and organized into a graph or similar data visualization. This enables doctors to track values such as weight, cholesterol levels, blood pressure, and heart rate with pinpoint accuracy, making it easy to notice trends and realize when there may be an asymptomatic problem at hand or just over the horizon.
Doctors can also leverage the functionalities of an EHR platform into a powerful tool for preventative care, using it to establish treatment goals, automatically deliver alerts when critical screenings like colonoscopies and mammograms are due, and calculate quality-of-care metrics such as screening rates. In the long run, this can improve not only efficiency but efficacy: in a 2011 survey, 92% of doctors who had been using EHRs meeting meaningful use criteria for two years or more claimed that doing so had produced clinical benefits for their practices.
In order to properly address the modern patient’s complex needs, doctors require expansive, accurate sources of information as well as reliable networks of specialists who can be called upon to provide targeted, complementary care. In addition to supplying diagnostic and therapeutic knowledge, EHR systems facilitate the instantaneous, secure, and error-free sharing of chart summaries, medical notes, consultation letters, and prescriptions among the often diffuse members of multidisciplinary treatment teams. This allows patients to consult with and receive care from a number of facilities without fear of miscommunication among providers.
The Value of EHRs in Dermatology
Within dermatology, EHRs have proven to be uniquely helpful. Dermatology has always been a fairly expansive and varied field, but over the last several decades it has evolved to include skin treatments originally found in the beauty or spa marketplaces in addition to traditional healthcare services. As a result, the size and diversity of our client base have increased significantly, placing a premium on accurate and flexible recordkeeping.
Additionally, the location and appearance of skin conditions bear heavily upon a practitioner’s diagnosis and monitoring processes, placing an outsized importance on visualization technology. A rough sketch of a skin lesion is notably less helpful than a precisely placed, highly-detailed rendering, or better yet, a locationally-tagged photograph. A good EHR system enables both of the latter entry types and thereby becomes an invaluable tool for dermatologists.
Symptom and remedy visualization is also useful in the context of telemedicine, which is another area where dermatology has seen especially encouraging outcomes. Because EHR platforms help dermatologists to see patients’ problems without an in-person examination, informal virtual visits have become an effective way to conduct preliminary assessments and prescribe appropriate emergency or stopgap remedies. By introducing a visual element, EHR systems have made remote consultations a viable option, and dermatologists bold enough to incorporate these new technological advancements will be able to provide better and more cost-effective treatment to psoriasis and Botox patients alike.
The Effect of EHRs on Patients
In the end, it is our patients’ needs that come first. The promise of EHRs is that they improve operations for healthcare providers without harming patients, and data shows that this is a promise that is possible to keep.
In a 2016 BMJ study, researchers hypothesized that “implementation [of EHRs] would have a negative association with short-term patient outcomes owing to disruption in clinical workflow.” Contrary to expectations, neither adopting EHRs nor implementing a new EHR system had any statistically significant effect on the tested outcome metrics. What’s more, a study published by Dove Medical Press suggests that EHRs are associated with a higher perceived quality of care by patients themselves.
As life expectancies continue to rise and the state of health insurance in the United States remains uncertain, it is more important than ever to seek out ways to make healthcare more efficient and effective. Electronic health records represent a low-risk, high-reward vehicle through which to accomplish these goals.
The views, opinions and positions expressed within these guest posts are those of the author alone and do not represent those of Becker's Hospital Review/Becker's Healthcare. The accuracy, completeness and validity of any statements made within this article are not guaranteed. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions or representations. The copyright of this content belongs to the author and any liability with regards to infringement of intellectual property rights remains with them.