Evaluation of the Role of an Information and Support Radiographer - Essay Example

LPCP developed systems to enable patients, registered with a London GP and who were approaching six months on the waiting list with a London NHS Trust, to be offered a degree of choice over when and where they received treatment. Patients who accepted the choice of another hospital would be treated earlier than if they remained with their existing hospital and earlier than the government target waiting time. LPCP activity commenced in October 2002 and by June 2004, 22,500 patients had been offered choice and 15,000 had accepted treatment at another hospital.

From the beginning of the Project, it was decided there should be an independent evaluation of performance against objectives. The evaluation focused on three areas, the patient experience (Picker Institute Europe), organizational change (Royal Holloway,) andsystem-widee impacts (University of York). In addition, a discrete choice experiment was conducted (King's Fund/RAND Europe) to examine patient attitudes toward different elements of choice". Thus Electronic Health Records (EHR) can bring about multifarious improvements in healthcare efficiency which would lead to patient satisfaction in the ultimate analysis.

However, er time efficiency of physicians and nurses is the targeted variable ithe n assessment of the system of collection of electronic records and the use of such a database. Associated variables are the safety and the overall quality of the offered healthcare. Literature has placed on record that EHR use is enhanced if the EHR system is capable of attaining high speed, ease of use, and value-added services such as the generation of reports in a variety of desired formats. (Ammenwerth E,et al,2001;Bates DW et al,2003; Herbst K et al,1999; Rotman BL, et al., 1996). However, the EHR systems are most evaluated through the user characteristics (Littlejohns P, et al, 2003; Rotich JK et al, 2003) and the training ease that is possible in such systems.

Literature variedly emphasizes the need for EHR systems to be formed after a thoroug understanding of the underlying clinical structure and systems. (Ammenwerth E et al,200 3); Beuscart-Zephir MC et al,2001; Kuhn & Giuse,20 01; LaDuke S.,20 01; Staccini P, et al,200To to achieve a good fit of the information system with the clinical settings extensive documentation is required to be made. This documentation needs to take into account all possibilities and eventualities before it is put on steam.