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Overview of Electronic Health Records

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Monitoring Technologies in Acute Care Environments

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Abstract

A core component of any health information technology (HIT) implementation is the electronic health record (EHR). EHRs have been created by a number of software vendors and some have been developed internally by healthcare organizations. While the feature sets available in EHRs may vary in detail, the core components include demographics, medications, allergies, immunizations, laboratory data, radiology reports, vital signs, problem lists, and progress notes. EHRs are, in effect, longitudinal records of current and past medical history. The availability of these data within a centralized system allows the compilation of data across multiple patient records, which directly supports outcome tracking and quality improvement. These data can also be used to drive clinical decision support systems.

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Suggested Reading

  • Gunter TD, Terry NP. The emergence of national electronic health record architectures in the United States and Australia: models, costs, and questions. J Med Internet Res. 2005;7(1):e3.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anesthesiology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, 1301 Medical Center Drive, Suite 4648, TVC, Nashville, TN, 37232, USA

    Jonathan P. Wanderer MD, MPhil

  2. Departments of Anesthesiology, Surgery, and Biomedical Informatics, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, 1301 Medical Center Drive, Suite TVC 4648, Nashville, TN, 37232, USA

    Jesse M. Ehrenfeld MD, MPH

Authors
  1. Jonathan P. Wanderer MD, MPhil
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  2. Jesse M. Ehrenfeld MD, MPH
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jonathan P. Wanderer MD, MPhil .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Departments of Anesthesiology, Surgery, and Biomedical Informatics, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee, USA

    Jesse M. Ehrenfeld

  2. Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Care, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, California, USA

    Maxime Cannesson

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© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Wanderer, J.P., Ehrenfeld, J.M. (2014). Overview of Electronic Health Records. In: Ehrenfeld, J., Cannesson, M. (eds) Monitoring Technologies in Acute Care Environments. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8557-5_44

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8557-5_44

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-8556-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-8557-5

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