A Concurrence - "The EMR and You Too"
By
Gregory V. Boulware
It's not uncommon for patients to wait for hours to be treated by busy emergency room staff. In keeping it's emergency departments promise(s) to patients depends on it running smoothly.
In the past, certain system problems could take hours or days to pinpoint and resolve, according to Mr. LeRoy, as reported in the article "Pulse of E-Records." The CIO continues to explain the difficulties of professionals like radiologists and their inefficient abilities to view digitized images. The system issues and problems of the past are typically addressed within an hour or minutes, says Mr. LeRoy.
This report can be a concurrence and continuing comment as recorded in "The EMR and YOU", - (Electronic Medical Records) 4.15.9. An Integrated Healthcare System that operates (within Hospitals and Medical Centers) Hospital Systems Management Tools (HSMT's) give the IT team "a fine level of granularity" or being the best that it can be or perfected, says the Chief Technical Officer (CTO), Steve Flemmini, as reported by M. K. McGee. The CTO extends his comment to cite what matters because the service requirements of primary care Physicians and Nurses are different from those of researchers and office staff.
The existence of Major Healthcare Software Tools (MHST's) can detect "Hot Spots" before users experience software glitches. The Integrated Application Management Performance Utilities (IAMPU) functions as a business service management and end-user monitoring tool. These software tools serve as indicators of the occurrence of performance problems and/or if the problem source is with one or more of the many systems servers or the software programming. This tool is a significant aid to the system technicians.
Software SLA's (Service Level Agreement) in areas such as system availability and responsiveness for drug orders, patient data access, and the practice scheduling software used by physicians, according to Flammini. Mr. Flammini goes on to say; "monitoring clinical system performance has been particularly helpful when programmers roll out new software releases or functionality upgrades. IT staff can quickly identify any deviations in service levels, allowing the IT team to isolate problems."
While it appears safe to say many healthcare professionals support the "EMR" system(s), one large metropolitan medical center has shown its support with the utilization of "EMR" software to monitor performance across 300 clinical applications, 600 servers, and other IT infrastructure, as stated by Mr. LeRoy. He also says, "In the old days, it was reactive. I'd wait for the call from users reporting problems. Now we have tools to stay two steps ahead."
Another large medical center runs simulated applications transactions to monitor how clinical systems are running, according to McGee. Mr. LeRoy makes it clear that automatic alerts, including emails and (update-memos) pages are received by IT Support Staff on watch over the system(s), whenever a problem is detected.
Medical Centers throughout the U.S. have begun to utilize, support, and promote "EMR" software and hardware technology. A few years ago, one such medical center began an initiative to promote 25-minute emergency department services, says Marianne Kolbasuk McGee.
Would it not be a pleasure or less inconvenient to be able to be accommodated in the reception medical services (especially the E.R.) at the nearest hospital - any hospital in the world? Imagine being able to walk up to the service-reception counter of an emergency room (doctors office / medical center) and just say your name or utilize some other identifying feature and receive instant service?
Could "Big Brother" be more than we could live with? Is he too invasive? Does he know too much about you (i.e., "Colossus, The Forbin Project", "I Robot", "1984", etc.)? Is he watching over you or after you? What would life be like without "Big Brother?" I don't know... but the one thing that I do know is...I don't know!
I'd like to have him (it) real close when it comes to my health and the "EMR" tools needed to analyze and possibly prevent ailments and/or illness.
How about you...too?
Til next time.
Acknowledgement(s):
"The Pulse of E-Records", Marianne Kolbasuk McGee, InformationWeek
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