Can Electronic Medical Records Cause Hurdles in Legal Cases?

In personal injury and medical malpractice litigation, electronic medical records (EMRs) play a significant role. Making use of electronic medical records in medico-legal cases has its own benefits as well as challenges.  

This blog dissects the essence of EMRs, identifies the challenges of electronic medical records in legal claims, and shows how to resolve those hurdles.

What are Electronic Medical Records (EMRs)?

Electronic medical records are digital or electronic versions of the traditional paper medical charts stored on a computer in a physician’s clinic. They contain demographic data, medical history, such as symptoms, diagnoses, medications prescribed, tests, allergies, and invasive treatment details of patients over time within one practice.

EMRs are more than just static collections for patient data; they can track data over time. Physicians can easily identify patients due for preventive screenings or checkups, monitor how patients measure up to certain parameters, like vaccinations and blood pressure readings, and improve overall quality of care within the practice.  

The patient data in EMRs is not usually shared or sent outside of the practice, such as to the labs or other hospitals.

How EMR Differs From EHR

While the terms EMR and EHR are often used interchangeably, there are significant differences between the two. The fundamental distinction lies in the scope and breadth of the data contained. EHRs are designed to contain and share information from all the clinicians involved in a patient’s care, including a more comprehensive patient history.

EHR enables the interoperability of medical data between facilities. Unlike EMR, it can be shared outside the facility that initially collects and prepares medical data. They are designed to share information with multiple health care providers, such as laboratories, imaging and emergency facilities and specialists, and outside the facility.  

They contain information from all clinicians involved in the patient’s care and provide a more comprehensive view of a patient’s health history. EHR data can be accessed by physicians from wherever they are and whenever they need.

Are there any advantages in using EMRs to establish claims?

Definitely! There are many advantages in using Electronic medical records to prove legal claims.

• Data clarity and accuracy: EMRs give accurate and precise accounts of a plaintiff’s medical history, diagnoses, treatments, and outcomes. This could help lawyers assess the validity of claims and ensure that all medical events are accurately represented in EMRs. EMRs also save lawyers from tackling illegible handwritten charts, misplaced or missing documents, or medical data transcription errors.

• Easy to access and review: Digital medical records can be accessed easily and are helpful in reducing time lapses in legal proceedings. Lawyers and record reviewers can access the data remotely, which nullifies the risk of losing records while transferring medical records physically. It also expedites the record review and thereby quickens the legal process.

• Organized data: As e-medical records are organized systematically, it will be easy to locate specific medical information. Organized medical data can be vital during the discovery phase of lawsuits, as relevant data can be located with ease.

• High data security: EMRs are subject to federal data security compliance like HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), which ensures patients’ sensitive data protection.

• Cost efficiency: Use of EMRs reduces the cost of paper, printing, storing, and transporting data physically. This can save the expenses for law firms and their clients, as there are voluminous medical records involved in every complex lawsuit.

• Treatment Timeline preparation: Use of EMRs can help prepare a treatment timeline of a plaintiff with significant medical events to prove the causation and progression of injury and its impacts on the plaintiff’s life.

• Standardized medical data: EMRs follow a standardized format and medical terminology, which reduces the likelihood of misinterpretation of complex medical jargon. This can be beneficial for attorneys unfamiliar with medical terms and helps them in the accurate interpretation of the medical conditions and treatment procedures.

• Easy Data transfer: Law firms can share data among the medical experts, lawyers, and other consultants with ease. They can discuss medical records in real-time and plan out legal strategies to handle claims effectively.

Hurdles in Using EMR in Proving Legal Claims

Despite the advantages, there are several legal issues with electronic medical records to prove legal claims. These legal concerns of electronic medical records include:

Complexity and inconsistency: EMRs can vary significantly in format and content between different healthcare providers, making it difficult to locate and interpret specific pieces of information.

Compatibility issues: Problems with software compatibility can hinder the process of obtaining a comprehensive view of a patient’s medical history from different sources. To elicit valuable data from varying EMRs, lawyers may need different types of expensive decoders or software, which can increase the expenses of the law firms.

Data tampering concerns: There’s a risk of medical data being altered, either maliciously or unintentionally, without leaving a clear audit trail. This can raise questions about the reliability and credibility of the records in proving the plaintiff’s damages.

Privacy regulations: Strict regulations like HIPAA can complicate the process of acquiring and sharing EMRs for legal purposes.

Technical errors: Errors in data entry, software bugs, or other technical EMR problems can lead to inaccuracies in the medical records that may not reflect the actual medical treatment or patient status. Sometimes, it can lead to loss of medical data, causing gaps in comprehending the plaintiff’s medical history or significant facts that can impact cases.

How can medical record review providers help resolve this issue?

The electronic medical records’ legal concerns can be solved by Medical record review providers. They have vast experience in handling varied formats of medical data and in-depth knowledge of complex medical terms and procedures. Assistance of expert record reviewers can be of great help in overcoming issues with electronic medical records and making use of EMRs in medico-legal cases.

• Expertise: They have diverse experience in sifting through the complexities of EMRs and cherry-picking the relevant data pertinent to legal claims. Their understanding of the nuances and variances across various EMR systems helps them handle even complex EMR systems easily.

• Verify data integrity: Using their unique methods to verify the integrity of medical data, medical reviewers can ensure that the data in EMRs is accurate and unaltered.

• Diverse technology to decode data: Experienced review providers will have advanced software technologies to bridge the gap between various EMR types. With their enhanced technology, they can elicit data from different types of EMR systems and provide a comprehensive and coherent review report.

• Regulatory compliance issues: They ensure that all record retrieval and review processes comply with data security regulations and mitigate the risk of legal challenges in electronic medical records pertaining to data breaches or unauthorized access to sensitive patient data.

• Organized summaries: They can surf through a vast amount of medical data in no time and prepare concise and accurate medical summaries that can pick out vital medical facts relevant to specific cases. This will help lawyers build strong cases, plan out legal strategies, and decide on the EMR expert witnesses to be included in the case.

To conclude,

While the use of EMRs has revolutionized data management in healthcare and legal spaces, it cannot come without its share of challenges. Making use of Electronic medical records data in legal claims requires a thorough understanding of the nuances and technology involved.  

Experienced medical record review providers can overcome these hurdles with their expertise and resources to ensure that EMRs provide maximum output in their intended purpose in establishing legal cases.