By DARLENE PRINCE
prince@crescent-news.com
The days of cumbersome charts and papers with medical records of patients is coming to an end at many hospitals across the country.
Electronic medical records systems are being slowly phased in at many hospitals in the United States and in some hospitals in this area. They will be used instead of paper in the future because they are more accurate and more complete.
With this system, the patient's information can be entered in the system immediately as the patient is being treated by a nurse or doctor, instead of being written on paper later on. Experts say this leads to more accurate patient records.
The collected data is typed into a computer, thus allowing quick access to the information by doctors, nurses and other medical employees. If a patient has to transfer to another hospital, the data from the electronic records system will be immediately available.
At the Fulton County Health Center in Wauseon, the electronic medical records system is called Meditech.
Kellyann Hartnett, RHIA, RHIT, and the hospital's director of health information, said the hospital will be using the system to its full capacity in the next few years. She said the system has modules that allow them to be used in phases in different departments.
Such modules are currently being used in the nursing department and in the laboratory and radiology departments.
At the Defiance Regional Medical Center (DRMC), an electronic records medical system is used for part of the record keeping, along with the standard paper system.
Cheryl Koenig, director of health information services at DRMC, said, "It (electronic system) can be a time saver and has the potential to reduce medical errors. It could be important for patient safety. It is where health care is headed nationwide."
At Paulding County Hospital, director of health information Brenda Wieland said, "We are assessing the feasibility of installing one of these systems at the hospital. It is very expensive and requires a great deal of training. At this point, it is still under assessment."
A spokesman for Defiance Clinic and Mercy Hospital of Defiance said neither health service is utilizing the electronic records medical system.