Final answer:
National initiatives focus on adopting Electronic medical records (EMRs) to improve healthcare efficiency and are part of the ACA's regulations to control healthcare costs, but raise concerns about the privacy of electronic health records.
Step-by-step explanation:
National initiatives and funding incentives have drawn attention to the use of Electronic medical records (EMRs) to record and access the full range of a patient's office experience in a coordinated manner. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) introduced regulations to encourage the adoption of EMRs with the goal of improving healthcare efficiency and reducing costs. The switch to EMRs is also meant to aid in the sharing of digital records among health providers, which is seen as a method to improve the quality of health care.
However, the privacy of electronic health records is a significant concern when it comes to policy development. This raises important questions that must be addressed, such as:
- How can patient data be protected from unauthorized access?
- What protocols need to be established to ensure data accuracy and integrity?
- How do we balance the cost savings of digital record-keeping with the potential privacy risks?
The topic of EMRs is highly relevant as healthcare seeks to adopt more efficient and standardized methods including telemedicine, new types of healthcare professionals, insurance mandates, and artificial intelligence, to cope with increasing demand and healthcare costs.