Some functions of an electronic health record system are much more important in providing pediatric care than in adult care. Pediatricians commonly complain about the absence of these "pediatric functions" when they are not available in electronic health record systems. To stimulate electronic health record system vendors to recognize and incorporate pediatric functionality into pediatric elect...

There are many reasons an organization may choose to implement electronic health records. The challenge is to acknowledge the benefits and deficiencies of the electronic health record, to understand the driving forces for implementation and the barriers to it, and to effect change in the workplace and consumer behaviour. Indeed, one challenge is the determination of the organizational stance wi...

The introduction of electronic health records will entail substantial organisational changes to the clinical and administrative staff in hospitals. Hospital owners in Denmark have predicted that these changes will render up to half of medical secretaries redundant. The present study however shows that medical secretaries have a great variety of duties, and often act as the organisational "glue"...

Health care providers remain uncertain about how they will fare financially if they adopt electronic health record (EHR) systems. We used survey data from forty-nine community practices in a large EHR pilot, the Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative, to project five-year returns on investment. We found that the average physician would lose $43,743 over five years; just 27 percent of practices wou...

This article discusses the authors' views on the security requirements of a central, unique electronic health record. The requirements are based on the well-known principles of confidentiality and integrity and the less discussed principles of control and legal value. The article does not discuss any technical or legal solutions to the requirements proposed herein.

Courtney Lyles and colleagues highlight how the expansion of patient-facing electronic health record portals could exacerbate existing healthcare disparities.

We develop and evaluate a data-driven approach for detecting unusual (anomalous) patient-management actions using past patient cases stored in an electronic health record (EHR) system. Our hypothesis is that patient-management actions that are unusual with respect to past patients may be due to a potential error and that it is worthwhile to raise an alert if such a condition is encountered. We ...

an electronic health record (EHR) system is how to fill it with patient data. What data should be entered, who should enter it, and when should it be done? I’ve seen many strategies tried, and in my experience the ideal solution is to have patients enter as much data as possible themselves before beginning a patient visit. This saves physicians time and can even lead to higher-quality data. Aft...

The electronic personal health record (PHR) has been championed as a mediator of patient-centered care, yet its usability and utility to patients, key predictors of success, have received little attention. Human-centered design (HCD) offers validated methods for studying systems effects on users and their cognitive tasks. In HCD, user-centered activities allow potential users to shape the desig...