Electronic Health Records: An Audit and Internal Control Guide

CHAPTER 8

Electronic Health Records

When you're finished changing, you're finished.

—BENJAMIN FANKLIN (1706–1790),

AMERICAN STATESMAN, SCIENTIST, AND PHILOSOPHER

On January 31, 2006, President George W. Bush declared, “We will make wider use of electronic records and other health information technology to help control costs and reduce dangerous medical errors.” Today, numerous types of electronic infrastructures appear throughout the P-HCC and S-HCC. This chapter focuses on providers, who initiate health information, and payers, who receive health information through claims data.

CURRENT E-HEALTH OFFERINGS

Exhibits 8.1 and 8.2 demonstrate the vastness of e-health vendor offerings in the provider and payer marketplaces. Although the lists do not exhaust possible offering capabilities, they recognize the features and functions commonly advertised by vendors within respective market segments. Vendors tend to offer some combination of the features and functions listed. In addition, depending on the particular vendor, the technology behind each feature and function varies significantly.

The e-health provider offerings focus heavily on workflow and emphasize patient health records. Providers fundamentally treat patients and require aggregated comprehensive health information to do so effectively. The final deliverable of any provider healthcare service or product results in the generation ...