CDC Warns Hospitals To Improve Emr System
investigation and mitigation .
Currently , there is no single place for health IT issues to be reported , pointing to the best option being the Health IT Safety Center proposed through FDASIA , according to Sawchuk .
Data centralization is vital because it is the only way to retrieve the data that is needed to fix the system , argues Sawchuk .
EMR systems provide significant advantages for managing laboratory information as structured data compared to paper records or electronic versions of paper records . The use of structured data substantially improves accessibility
and portability of health information , local and national surveillance programs , and clinical decision support tools . Thus , it is important for laboratory and other healthcare professionals to invest their time and effort now in the development of consensus-based information exchange standards .
While the problem looks deceptively easy to resolve given the widespread agreement that naming and preference standardization is needed , the answer lies in getting hospitals to agree on the consistent format and funding short-staffed hospital administrators who have limited resources to make such changes .
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