Electronic health records (EHRs): benefits and challenges. What is the impact on workflow, efficiency, and patient safety? What are the barriers to EHR adoption, including cost and usability issues.

Electronic Health Record (EHR) Challenges and Benefits Author’s Name The Institutional Affiliation Course Number and Name Instructor Name Assignment Due Date Introduction Electronic Health Records (EHRs) mark a significant transformation in the healthcare field that revolutionizes the healthcare industry and enables patient data to be stored electronically, allowing for easier access to patient history and documentation and better organization of care between different health services (Alomar et al., 2024). However, EHRs' changes will significantly impact the operational processes and clients' safety (Keshta & Odeh, 2021). This paper focuses on the effects of EHRs on healthcare services and how those effects impact implementation. More specifically, this paper tackles the issue of these systems’ cost and user-friendliness. Benefits of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) Peripheral Workflow and Operational Effectiveness Clinical efficiency occurs through immediate access to patient records, automated billing, and lesser documentation. Automatic messages, alerts, and reminders enhance communication and collaboration within the healthcare team, facilitating straightforward decision-making (Alomar et al., 2024). Besides, eliminating paper records with EHRs further increases efficiency by removing the manual record-keeping and retrieval work. Enhanced Patient Protection and Care Standards A key benefit of EHRs is the improvement of patient safety. Medication errors are reduced through drug interaction alerts, allergy alerts, and active clinical decision support (Olakotan & Yusof, 2021). Proper documentation guarantees that necessary patient histories, laboratory examinations, and diagnostic reports are always available for informed decision-making on clinical healthcare provision. Also, the ability to follow evidence-based guidelines improves patient outcomes. Multifaceted Data Management and its Analysis Integrating other systems like laboratory and imaging makes tracking patients' progress easier, enhancing data management (Junaid et al., 2022). To diagnose disease patterns, disperse resources, and optimize preventive care, investigative benchmarks aided by predictive analytics and population health management tools validate technology use in EHR systems (Sathyavathi et al., 2024). Such capabilities allow for better management of chronic diseases and more meaningful public health actions by healthcare organizations. Challenges of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) Financial Challenges The expenses involved in setting up EHR, including but not limited to software, hardware, and training, are very high and, thus, are among the greatest challenges for healthcare facilities, especially small practices (Bisrat et al., 2021). The institution is also faced with ongoing maintenance costs, which makes this challenge even more daunting for healthcare institutions with inadequate funding that can barely afford to set up and cover the expenses of the EHR system. Design Problems Many EHR systems are poorly designed, which is counterproductive, clogs the workflow, and frustrates the clinician (Tayefi et al., 2021). On the other hand, extensive documentation demands and lengthy data entry processes disrupt workflows and co...