Introduction
Electronic Health Records in use now sounds very familiar to us. They allow healthcare providers to easily remember the personal information of a patient. However, as good as it is to start practicing EHR, medical malpractice or a personal injury case has so many concerns or, perhaps, moral headaches for the lawyers. This article tries to deal with the major issues related to us, lawyers and in what way it affects the practice of law and how best medical record review services are likely to help us in all these.
Electronic Health Records (EHR/ EHRs)
One of the definitions reads “EHRs are a digital version of a patients’ paper chart, it encompasses the storage, collection and exchange of health information to be in one of them”. Now the upside of this whole movement of implementing EHR is that, it allows for a better record of an individual’s health and approach to it, such as when a patient suffered from an illness or was convicted. The purpose of having all these in one platform is to increase the avatar of the treatment delivered, and ensure more safety and lessen the amount of informality when interacting with healthcare professionals.
Advantages of Electronic Health Records
- Timely Information: Electronic Health Records help health care providers in obtaining information about the patient in an easy and fast way irrespective of the geographical barriers.
- Better Integration of Services: Different physician’s EHR makes it easy for them to communicate with other providers allowing them to share the same information with everyone who is engaged in the care of the patient.
- Reduced Paperwork: Electronic Health Records are able to help reduce the time needed to complete forms and documents, allowing practitioners to be more engaged with their patients.
Data Integrity and Accuracy
One of the primary concerns for attorneys is the integrity and accuracy of the data contained within EHRs. Errors in documentation can lead to misdiagnoses, inappropriate treatments, and ultimately, patient harm. Key issues include:
- Errors in Inputting Data: Quite a lot is at risk as the data entry can contain some nasty errors that can completely change a normal patient’s life.
- Missing Entries: It would be truly disastrous if the healthcare provider somehow forgets to update the EHRs which contained significant information as long legal processes would be affected and ill-informed.
- Non-integrated Systems: Not all practice settings are fully integrated and this means that discrepancies will be noted as there are patients who seek care from many practice providers.
Privacy and Security Issues
Electronic Health Records contain sensitive patient information, making them prime targets for cyberattacks. Attorneys must be aware of the following concerns:
- Hacking: It always has adverse consequences e.g. Penalties and fines: loss of cheap clients. Certainly, looking at data doesn’t remotely compare.
- The HIPAA Laws: The client’s privacy comes before everything. This means that attorneys must substantiate that all health care professionals adhere by all the guidelines of the HIPAA laws.
- Patient Consent: If patients do not know about the purpose of the use of their information, legal notice is difficult because human consent to share the information is an issue.
Interoperability Challenges
Interoperability refers to the ability of different Electronic Health Records systems to communicate and share data effectively. Challenges in this area can create significant hurdles for attorneys:
- Inconsistent Standards: Due to the wide variety of Electronic Health Records systems, the collection and reading of the same information on the patient may be a challenge.
- Data Silos: When an Electronic Health Records is not compatible with EHRs of various hospitals, it means all the information about the patient is stored in a single server, and it makes it hard for attorneys to find out and understand certain events in the life of the patient.
Legal Liability and Malpractice Risks
The integration of EHRs into healthcare practice raises important legal considerations for attorneys:
- Malpractice Claims: The loss or disregard of vital information within EHR systems may be used as a foundation of malpractice legal suits. For this reason, EHRs must be carefully examined by sports lawyers.
- Defensive Medicine: The threat of being sued makes healthcare providers to use defensive medicine, which has a negative effect on patient care and makes legal cases more complex.
- Documentation Standards: Lawyers working with EHRs have to know the level of documentation required for certain information systems and adjust to the expectations. Failure to do so may lead to challenges in the respective cases.
Case Studies
Case Study 1: Summary of the Case
- Background: A lawyer P was working for a client and the client had sued a doctor for malpractice after he made mistakes during surgery. The documents provided by the client’s healthcare provider were all over the place and not up to par.
- Challenges: The lawyer was unable to make out certain crucial details that could serve as evidence for lapse in duty towards the claimant owing to some data in the records being absent or recorded in the incomplete form.
- Solutions: The entire episode of care was being followed by the physician that stood out in the records. Chunks of documentation were missing, and specific details that preceded the surgical error were flagged by our review as well. Accordingly, a brief report that captures all the key events and chronological flow of occurrences was submitted to accompany the records as well.
- Compensation: Generally, what comes out from a review enhances the strength of the attorney’s case and certainly in this instance, it was of assistance, hence the reasons for the settlement.
Case Study 2: Assessment of Medical Records Review
- Background: A law firm from the UK handled the case which revolved around the personal injury wherein the plaintiff claimed that poor quality stage of healthcare resulted in more complications than intended. The problem was that the EHRs from different health care providers were not only disjointed but also difficult to comprehend.
- Challenges: As a result the attorney was finding it difficult to make a cogent and persuasive story from the different records and this was adding to the complication of the case preparation.
- Solutions: In the process of collation, treatment gaps and parts were identified and those together constituted the pivotal for the case. In essence what we did was prepare a timeline in systematic format by collating and creating a comprehensive EHR that included relevant information from other providers of the plaintiff’s health care services.
- Compensation: Based on our findings, the attorney represent outline of relevant facts similar that helped in achieving a positive outcome.
Conclusion
With the growth of Electronic Health Records, lawyers need to always be on the look-out for challenges that may arise such as the ethical concerns that relate to the medical data use in law. These complexities include data integrity, privacy, legal issues, and even the interoperability of the EHR systems. To effectively utilize such tools for case management, it is vital for lawyers to fully understand the above-mentioned complexities. We provide such help with the professionals who specialize in medical records and will be able to help lawyers in case where EHRs are complex. In fact, for lawyers aiming at accomplishing better results in the cases through more effective preparation of the case files, cooperation with professional medical records review service is what they need to do.