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Table 2 Perceived benefits and problems of electronic information exchange

From: Benefits and problems of electronic information exchange as perceived by health care professionals: an interview study

Perceived benefits

Improvements in the efficiency of health care and the speed of communication

Access to up-to-date information about patients

Improvements in the quality of care (e.g. prevention of medical errors)

Perceived problems: confidentiality and security of electronic information exchange

General

n-EPR

- Unauthorised persons having access to patient data due to limited security of electronic information systems or carelessness/misuse by health care providers

- Risks regarding patients' privacy and unauthorised persons' access to patient data will increase

- Using authorisation profiles to organise access to electronic patient records can cause problems in crisis situations

- Limited safety of the UZI-pass

- The limited usefulness of logging data for evaluating the legitimacy of health care providers' access to patient data

- It is unclear how the legitimacy of health care providers' access to patient data will be evaluated and who will be responsible for the evaluation

 

- Essential information may be missed because of patients' desire to protect their privacy and conceal their electronic records or parts of it

Perceived problems: reliability and quality of patient information

- Inadequate recording of patient information

- Inadequate recording of patient information

- Interoperability problems between information systems

- Health care providers may become more cautious in recording sensitive or personal patient information in electronic records

- Information overload

- Doubts about the technical performance of the n-EPR

- Limited speed of electronic information exchange

 

Other perceived problems

- Health care providers' liability in case of medical errors is unclear

- Unfamiliarity of other health care providers

- Limited usefulness of protocols and guidelines

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