Preventive Medicine Barriers that can be decreased with an Electronic Health Record (EHR)

My mother always told me an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I know this is a familiar quote and not an original for her but it is something that she lives by. I think the concept was something that was handed down to her from my grandmother’s generation and from generations before that. I can remember my mother and my grandmother doing more things for preventive medicine measures than what I typically see today with my own grown children. Most people take a multi-vitamin but it seems that other remedies have been almost noted as taboo. Alternative medicine is making a come back. It has been there all along but not really accepted in the medical community. Take for example eating garlic. Eating raw garlic has been used as a natural cure for centuries for everything from treating the common cold to fighting skin fungus. Garlic, hot peppers, and onions have been used to prevent and treat colds for centuries. Most of us can probably agree that hot salsa will clear out your sinuses quickly but do we use it for anything other than eating it and enjoying the flavor? Some claim that skin fungus can be remedied and prevented by eating a few crushed cloves of fresh raw garlic daily. It has been stated that fungus doesn’t like garlic in your bodies’ sweat. These were things that I was told when I was a child but I do not see anyone in my family really using garlic this way today. I do however remember that my grandmother always smelled of onions on her breath. Did she really know a thing or two about preventive medicine or did she just really like onions?

The health care coin really has two sides to it. We have Forty-six million Americans, including 9 million children that are living without health care coverage and then we have individuals demanding more from the health care system. Today, we are also seeing so much more empowerment for the individual patient or consumer to medicine and their health care information. The patient is demanding more and more options. They are exercising their rights. Alternative medicine is a growing industry even if the medical community doesn’t want to acknowledge it. It could continue to grow more if we do not fix our current health care system. People will start to look outside our country for their health care needs. Some have already started to do so. We need more transparency with our health care system. We need more options. We need lower cost and a way to make sure that everyone has access to health care. The barriers are there and they are thick and this includes preventive medicine but we can decrease the barriers if we transition to the electronic health record (EHR).

By using EHRs physicians today can strengthen relationships with their patients and improve the quality of care. Physicians need to make note of all alternative medicine methods that there patients might be using. The EHR can help track their information. At the point of care, decision support tools linked to these electronic records can provide practice guideline information and reminders to ensure that care is proper and complete. The delivery of clinical preventive services can be enhanced through patient education and automatic prompts for action needed by either the patient or physician. While physicians are typically responsible for caring for their own patients, if every health care organization used the EHR it could contribute to the health of the public at large. Emerging communicable diseases, unsafe foods, and bioterrorism are among the threats that concern Americans. We have all heard by now the big issue of using peanut butter and the salmonella outbreak. Disease surveillance, threat monitoring, and reporting are key factors, which can be greatly improved by the application of health information technology. EHRs, if properly configured and linked, can play a key role in alerting public health officials to health emergencies so that proper countermeasures can be taken. EHRs if fully implemented today with all health care providers would truly make tracking and disseminating health care information easier. If you would like to know more about how to get started with decreasing your barriers to health care information please feel free to contact me.

Tags: barriers, EHR, garlic, health care industy, preventive medicine