Electronic Health Record from a Historical Perspective

      Davis Program is a program that has a goal of improving and developing patient record. This curriculum has greatly influenced the medical field indeed. Davis Program is named from Dr Nicholas E. Davies, an Atlanta based Physician, president elect of the American College of Physicians, and a member of Institute of Medicine (IOM) committee on improving patient record.   ^[1]

         EHR (Electronic Health Record) is an evolving concept defined as a systematic collection of electronic health information about individual patients or populations. (Gunter T.D., Terry N.P. (2005). ^[2] 

EHRs may include a range of data, including demographics, medical history, medication and allergies immunization status, laboratory test results, radiology images, vital signs, personal stats like age and weight, and billing information. ^[3] EHR is really significant because it helped make the field more advanced and highly developed that would help the nurses make their jobs faster and more accurate. Because of this system, error in documenting the patient’s record was avoided; there was transparency in doing gathering and doing their reports, hassle was prevented also, vital signs are being checked, billing information can be computed and this record is competent of being shared across the different health care settings thus knowledge will be gathered as on to evaluate the possible outcomes of the patient. EHR provides confidentiality and security of the information that are being typed and processed by the nurse or the person who is in charged and to add this up it is a tool that supports clinical decision making, evaluation of the outcomes and etc.

        On the other hand, there are also issues regarding of implementing the EHR. Even though it has many advantages of helping the medical field, it has also barriers regarding its uses. For example, some hospitals might not have the resources or does not know how to get started or to use it because they don’t have experience or get an enough training to really manage it well. This issue really concerns me because as a nursing student I also want to have an idea or knowledge about this. We need to help each other to provide efficient and competent care to the patients.

       Can my community come up with an EHR? For me, yes. I think so if we just have sufficient resources and budget that would possibly have an EHR. I think that all we need is to help, cooperate or collaborate to be able to come up with an EHR. If we are all determined and responsible in everything we do, I know that we can do it. We just also have to stay positive and have faith in God.

^[1](Source: http://apps.himss.org/davies/)

^[2]("The Emergence of National Electronic Health Record Architectures in the United States and Australia: Models, Costs, and Questions". J Med Internet Res 7: 1.)

^[3](Habib JL. EHRs, meaningful use, and a model EMR.Drug Benefit Trends. May 2010;22(4):99-101. Thus, I can say that  EHR have really changed the outlook or the viewpoint in the medical field. )