Implantable EHR Microchips: Benefits and Privacy Risks
An electronic health record is a digital record of a patient's health information generated from every medical visit a patient makes. This information includes the patient's medical history, demographics, known drug allergies, progress notes, follow up visits, medications, vital signs, immunizations, laboratory data and radiological reports. The EHR automates and streamlines a clinician's workflow. (Himss, 2009)
Due to the multiple advantages of an EHR, health care agencies have been aiming to push up this technology. In 2004, the FDA approved of an implantable EHR microchip into patients. Each microchip has a specific code which is identified through sensors. The device is implanted under the skin, in the back of the arm, requiring a twenty minute procedure, without needing the use of sutures. ("Fda approves computer," 2004)
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, deaths due to preventable medical errors rank as the fifth most common cause of death. (CDC, 2011) These errors can be attributed to human factors, the complexity of medicine itself and to system failure. Exhaustion and fatigue due to long work hours, unfamiliar settings, time pressures, stress and inability to acknowledge the severity of a certain given set of signs and symptoms are a few human factors that may play a role in medical errors. Implantable EHR devices provide health care set ups with a decreased need for the employment of a large work force. These microchips provide physicians with easily retrievable data that is continuous and accurate reducing the error involved with poor communication amongst on call residents and nurses. Also, the problems involved with providing continuity of care as well as reducing work hours can be solved with these devices, thus promoting patient safety. (Himss, 2009)
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