Inadequate electronic health records systems may prevent health care providers from accessing advance directives. When these systems do not work well enough, patients, their families, and doctors are negatively affected. For example, a patient’s doctor could be using one record system and their emergency room another. When the software does not match up, emergency room doctors are unable to access important patient preferences. Additionally, many of the designs for these health records systems lack a dedicated tab to store patient directives. Time does not always allow for tedious searching through unaligned systems. In order to address this issue, many states have created online databases for patients to securely upload and store advance directives. However, policymakers and advocates are pushing for additional fixes. Click here to read more on this topic.
Last Updated on May 8, 2020 by Aimed Alliance
