TPO 46 integrated essay

In the lecture, the professor discusses why electronic medical records of patients' information are not better than the traditional paper-based records. This, however, refutes the reading, which states that storing patients; medical records in electronic databases have several advantages over traditional paper-based records.

First, the cost saving of using electronic records is not significant. In fact, most healthcare facilities, which have adopted electronic data saving, keep their paper records as an emergency backup. Therefore, the storing cost is not reduced. This challenges the article, which asserts that the use of electronic records can help reduce costs by saving money on storing and transferring medical records.

Second, the lecturer claims that the use of electronic medical records can not eliminate errors that happened due to bad hand-writing. Indeed, doctors still use pens and papers while they are examining their patients, afterward, the other medical staffs have to transfer this information to the electronic database. Thus, electronic records can not prevent such errors because staffs need to interpret what the doctor has written. This opposes the article, which mentions that electronic records are essential to reducing the chances of medical errors.

Finally, the speaker says that researchers still have problems getting access to patients' medical records. In fact, the US has define and strict laws regarding medical records and who can have access to them to ensure the patient's privacy. Hence, researchers still need to get many approval to access such an information even if the facility uses an electronic system. This casts doubt on the text, which points out that electronic medical records can help medical research by making it possible to gather large amounts of data from patient records.