Telecommuting has rapidly increased by 60% over the past five years. Jack Nilles, a NASA employee started the trend in the 1970s. Over a 30+ year span, the trend increased here and there; however, since 2013 it has exploded. Employers have begun making decisions to send employees home to work. Pros include less travel time, […]
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Moving to Electronic Medical Records – Pros and Cons
If you’ve been to a new doctor’s office lately, you may have had the experience of having the medical assistant use a computer to record all of your symptoms and complaints. It’s also quite likely that the doctor also used a computer to make his or her notes, order tests and perhaps even fax your prescription directly to your pharmacy. Welcome to the world of electronic medical records, also known as EMRs.
As we begin to rely on technology more and more, it seems inevitable that we’d eventually develop electronic medical records. Some organizations have embraced them wholeheartedly, while other doctors resist using EMRs. In addition, patients are divided between loving the convenience of these new systems and worrying about their privacy. But what are the pros and cons of using EMRs?
In theory, EMRs would reduce medical errors. Doctors have infamously horrible handwriting, and an electronic record would eliminate any problems due to legibility. An error could still be made by checking the wrong box in a form for example, but EMRs have programs in place to help catch these types of errors. On the other hand, EMRs can be too limiting in the case of patients who have multiple conditions or whose conditions don’t fit neatly into the record’s pre-established criteria.
In addition, the volume of paper medical records can grow considerably over time until they becomes quite bulky. Paper degrades and there’s the ongoing problem of increasing storage requirements. EMRs, on the other hand, can always be stored in a small amount of space.
Paper medical records are also subject to loss from fire, flood damage or other emergency. While EMRs may also fall prey to such hazards, it’s easier to backup electronic data and store it off site so that it can be recovered in the event of a disaster.
When a patient’s records are in paper form, it can be harder to get copies of all documents to the various sites where they are needed. When the records are contained in an EMR, the information can be more easily accessed. On the other hand, there is, at present, no standardization among EMRs. If you use providers who aren’t part of the same system and use different EMR formats, it can be hard to transfer information from one record to another.
Access to an EMR is also a major privacy issue. Patients worry that computer systems can be hacked and wireless networks aren’t always secure. For this reason, it’s far easier to steal information from an EMR than from a paper medical record. Patients also worry that sensitive medical data could be used inappropriately, such as when applying for a job or admission to college. While it’s against the law to discriminate, when it comes to this type of information, once it’s been seen, it can’t be forgotten. As medical information becomes more advanced – including genetic information, for example – people have even more reason to worry that the information will wind up in the wrong hands.
Finally, when a health care provider is busy entering information into an EMR, it can be easy to ignore the patient or reduce the patient interview to a series of questions designed to allow the doctor to tick off the appropriate boxes. The practice of medicine is still an art, and some patient advocates argue that EMRs could detract from the human side of the equation.
The author writes for Eat Healthy Live Healthy, an online resource that helps you lead a more healthy life. It covers many topics, including nutrient density.
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Pros and Cons of Buying Refurbished Medical Equipment
Buying refurbished medical equipment does not necessarily mean sacrificing on quality. In fact, the biggest differences between new and refurbished medical equipment are the price and the amount of work involved in finding a good deal. Buying refurbished equipment can save you sometimes over 50% of what you’d normally pay for brand new equipment. Buying refurbished medical equipment is especially popular among doctors setting up small practices.
Nearly every piece of equipment you can find new, you can also find used and refurbished at a lower price. Everything from IV poles to ultrasound machines. If a medical device has been refurbished it means that a group of highly trained medical technicians have worked on it and restored it to the best possible condition before it was put back on the market. It means it was fixed if it needed fixing, and that old parts that needed replacing were replaced, so that it now works just as well as any new device you can find. Going for refurbished medical equipment means you can find high end, durable devices at sometimes half the price.
So why would someone opt to buy new? Well, for starters, with a new piece of medical equipment, you have more of a certainty that you know what you’re paying for. New equipment has a factory warranty and is guaranteed to work a certain way for a certain amount of time. You don’t have to shop around as much or worry about durability or quality. You just pay the money.
Now, you might be able to find a great warranty on a refurbished device. It’s just a matter of doing some research and checking out different dealers. Each refurbished medical equipment company will have its own warranty policies and guarantees. But if the extra work is worth the savings for you, then there’s no reason not to try buying refurbished medical devices for your practice.
Make sure to check out the refurbished equipment company’s background before you purchase from it. Look at their service and quality standards and look online for customer reviews.
For more information on used medical equipment and medical devices, please visit http://www.akwmedical.com
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Pros and Cons of Utilizing Teleradiology Services
Radiologists considering the use of an outside service for final reads will have questions that include not only quality and cost but also the impact on the group’s relationship with its hospital and referring physician community. The answer will not be the same for every radiology practice. Here we present some of the pros and cons for consideration in the decision-making process.
The teleradiology industry was founded well over a decade ago around the idea that a radiologist in a different time zone could handle a practice’s overnight hospital emergency readings and allow the local group to avoid that dreaded shift. Those preliminary readings would have to be over-read by the local group the next morning in order for them to issue a final report. Today the original idea of providing only preliminary reads for night coverage is becoming outmoded, and modern teleradiology means real-time, final reporting from a remote site.
