EHR Discovery Series - Part 4 - Failure and Maintenance

EHRs are subject to a wide range of changes and failures.  In the blink of an eye, months or years of information can be corrupted or you may lose access to your EHR information.  The key discovery issues will be to determine what events have occurred and whether the problems lead to or affected the medical professional liability event.  As important will be the recovery strategy and process that your organization undertook to address the problem and maintain the currency of the patient medical record.

EHR Discovery Series - Part 3 - EHR Use

Even with the most effective EHR, practices and HCOs need to use the EHR tool in an effective manner and upgrade the tool appropriately.  In many cases, practices and HCOs are not using EHRs or maintaining patient information in a manner that will stand up to scrutiny and discovery in the event of a medical professional liability event.

EHR Discovery Series - Part 2 - EHR Design

Many EHR designs pose challenges to accumulate the information needed to defend against a malpractice claim.  For example, most EHR systems cannot present the patient medical record as it existed at a certain period of time.   Thereby, one could not review the information that was available at the time in question, or even distributed notes or documents provided to the patient or other providers.

EHR focused discovery will examine whether the structure of the EHR product impacted the entry or presentation of information related to the incident.

Case Study on Paper Charts to EHR

I co-authored a case study on Medical Professional Liability (MPL) Risk with Susan Lieberman, Vice President of Risk Management for Conventus Inter-Insurance Exchange.  This case study highlights the importance of making good transition decisions as well as the substantial number of MPL Risks and, more importantly, risk reduction strategies you need to use to avoid serious problems in the future.

EHR Discovery Series - Part 1 - Transition from Paper Charts to EHR

                                                                       

The transition from patient paper chart is dramatic and daunting.  Paper charts spanning a number of years are rarely organized to accommodate an EHR based chart.  Expedient approaches to paper chart transitions without considering the continuity of care and preservation of paper records could expose the practice to a variety of problems and issues.

EHR Discovery Series - Introduction

Electronic Health Record (EHR) implementation and use supposedly eliminates a variety of Medical Professional Liability issues and risks.  However, EHRs have a wide array of product and usage weaknesses that could distort the patient medical record, and undermine malpractice defense.  Indeed, EHR focused discovery could expose providers to a previously unheard of level of scrutiny and analysis that could undermine the efficacy of the very medical records expected to support provider due diligence and clinical decision making.

Meaningful Use and Medical Professional Liability

Any transition of patient clinical records presents potential problems and issues that could affect medical professional liability (MPL).  Attainment of Meaningful Use is no different.