Running Head: FEATHERFALL MEDICAL CENTER
Milestone 1: Featherfall Medical Center
Nicoletta Serrecchia
Southern New Hampshire University
HIM-500-Q3140
Running Head: FEATHERFALL MEDICAL CENTER
Featherfall Medical Center
Health Information Technology has been around formally since the late 1920's. At this
moment was when healthcare professionals realized that documenting patient care benefited both
the providers and the patients (Brooks, 2015). From the 1920's and on, paper medical records
were widely used up until the 60's and 70s's when technology advanced, and the development of
computers. According to Brooks (2015), "Individual departments of the healthcare industry-such
as patient registration-recognized the usefulness of keeping electronic records" (pg. 1). Moving
forward into the 80's is when healthcare software development made huge strides in
advancement. Specifically, they introduced the MPI, also known as, Master Patient Index. This is
a database that includes patient information that can be used across departments in a healthcare
organization (Brooks, 2015). Unfortunately, there was a large wave of medical errors and patient
deaths in the early 2000's which caused for a new search for a practical EHR system. According
to Brooks (2015), "Traditional organizations will have to understand not only how to collect
data, but also to quickly and reliably process, analyze and deliver the data to those who need it,
to any device" (pg.1). Historically, health information management has made incredible strides
to help better services for patients and providers. As years go on and technology increases, there
is going to continue to be changes made to better the systems for healthcare organizations.
In order for Featherfall Medical Center to improve on their issues, they are going to need
to implement specific guidelines that will ensure safety and security to the patients of the
medical center. These guidelines need to be followed specifically, and to the tee by each and
every staff member. Whether you're clinical, administrative, managerial, volunteer, etc. Health
Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), was created in 1996 to protect patient's
health information. A major goal of the privacy rule is to assure that individuals health
Running Head: FEATHERFALL MEDICAL CENTER
information is properly protected while allowing the flow of health information needed to
provide and promote high quality health care and to protect the public's health and well being
(OCR, 2013). For Featherfall Medical Center, I think that following proper HIPAA guidelines
would be a great starting point for them to better themselves as an organization. Due to the fact
that they are also struggling with proper training with the technology they have, I think it would
be beneficial for them to require training programs to all of the employees. "Transitioning to a
new EHR system is more than simply swapping hardware or adding computers to exam rooms;
its changing the way you do healthcare" (BlueEHR, 2016). End-user training is crucial from the
smallest organizations to the largest organizations.
In today's world, there are numerous types of technologies that are used across the board
in the field of HIM. As mentioned above, there are EHR systems tha