System Design and Its Effect on Selected Components of Meaningful Use for Electronic Health Record (EHR) Software

Abstract

This study aims to answer three research questions: 1) What role do information system design, implementation and use play in the creation and the maintenance of accurate active medication list (AML)? 2) What elements lead to an accurate AML? 3) What elements lead to an inaccurate AML? Since our study is exploratory and little literature was found on this topic, we took the case study approach. We investigated how the process of creating an AML was carried out by interviewing clinicians directly involved at three hospital sites. Even though the current findings are primitive due to limited data, several things could be noted. First, information system clearly plays a role in the accuracy of the AML. Second, the connectivity of various medical records systems and pharmacy databases needs improvement. Third, the information system should generate and present three distinctive listings: home medication list, inpatient medication list, and discharge medication list.