Electronic medical records systems are designed to improve the accuracy and continuity of patient care at hospitals and other healthcare facilities. But EMRs can also allow errors that lead to patient harm. In a medical malpractice case, an EMR can provide evidence useful in determining whether a patient received the standard of care they were entitled to and whether a provider’s failures caused injury.
An electronic medical record is a digital version of a patient’s chart, containing their medical history, diagnoses, treatments and test results. It streamlines clinical workflows and allows providers to track data over time to improve the overall quality of care within that practice.
However, use of EMRs can introduce significant risks of errors, such as:
- Copy-and-paste charting — When providers reuse old notes without updating them, critical changes in a patient’s condition may go unnoticed. This practice can lead to misdiagnosis, delayed treatment or medication errors.
- Missed alerts — Hospital systems are programmed to flag potential drug interactions, abnormal test results and other clinical warnings that require attention. These alerts may be overridden, ignored or buried under a volume of notifications that providers have become desensitized to.
- Medication-management failures — EMRs are designed to track prescriptions and flag potential conflicts, but providers might fail to verify patient-reported medications or update records after changes. These mistakes can lead to dangerous interactions or incorrect dosing.
- Delayed review of test results — Although EMRs make results accessible, providers may fail to check them promptly, particularly in busy hospital environments where results are uploaded to a patient’s chart but not promptly acted upon. This may lead to delayed diagnosis of conditions.
On the other hand, EMR systems can benefit a plaintiff in a medical malpractice case because they automatically generate audit trails that can serve as vital evidence. Every time a record is accessed, modified or reviewed, the system logs who made the change, when it was made and what the record looked like before and after. Audit trails can reveal breakdowns in communication, missed opportunities for intervention or failure to follow up on abnormal findings. As such, they often provide clear evidence of negligence that would be difficult to uncover with paper records.
Patients in New York have the right to access their own medical records, including EMR audit trails. An experienced New York medical malpractice attorney can work with healthcare IT experts to analyze these records and build a compelling case for recovering financial compensation.
The law firm of Rich & Rich, P.C. represents victims of medical malpractice throughout the Greater New York area and Long Island. We have offices in midtown Manhattan and Roslyn Heights. Call us at 212-407-5570 or contact us online to schedule your free consultation.