Case study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 2

Case Study Example Each medical practitioner and service provider has a different recordkeeping system in place, each of these systems has a cost of its own, having a free system in place would cut down costs remarkably. According estimates the cost reduction would be to the tune of S80 to $240 billion dollars (Laudon & Laudon, 2009). The recordkeeping systems are not interconnected with one another. An individual may have one record with their dentist, another with their general family practitioner and yet another with their gynecologist. In case one medical service provider needs to see the records from another medical service provider, the patient has to lug around the physical files. In case the patient goes to a practitioner in an emergency, they may not be able to give them a full picture of the various illnesses, sensitivities or allergies they may have, leading to a wrong diagnosis. With a central system of records in place all medical practitioners that a person visits would have access to all their medical records and would be able to get a complete picture of the persons state of health. Electronic recordkeeping will reduce the costs related to recordkeeping for each medical service provider. There may be some cost for transferring existing records to the online system. The management would have to make sure that misuse and leakage of information does not occur. The implementation of this technology would make it easier to organize and access medical records. There should be laws in place restricting the use of medical information in profiling especially through methods such as non-obvious relationship awareness which have the potential of causing trouble for law abiding citizens. HIPAA guarantees should be extended to online records. Once such guarantees are in place, medical service providers and patients will be more likely to adopt electronic medical recordkeeping. There should be a single format for all medical recordkeeping. Rival systems should be able to