Medical Records (a case for going electronic!)

Today I was organizing files for the dental clinic with Michelle. There were large boxes of patient files that were numbered--basically all we had to do was "inventory" the files by writing down the patients' names and clinic card number. While I was working, I realized many little glitches that could cause serious problems with the administration of health care. First of all, since all the records were hand written (and often times in different handwritings) it was very difficult to read and confirm proper spellings of patient names. Also, many people had very similar names, or families who were all patients could easily have mixed-up records. For example, today there were two patients who had the exact same first and last name. Firstly, I needed to make sure that the two files did not both belong to the same person by looking at the date of birth in both files. BUT,the birthdate just offered more confusion (and a random coincidence) considering that both of the patients with the exact same name were born on the exact same day of the month of September, but one was born in 1937 and the other was born in 1995. At first, this just raised further suspiscion for me that the two files belonged to the same person and that the date in 1995 just referred to the date of an exam. But after further careful inspection, I had to accept that the files belonged to two seperate people that just happened to have the same name and be born on the same day. Such cases can really have a negative effect on health care in case these two patient files were ever mixed up, especially considering that one is an elderly lady and the other is a 16-year old girl. Also, I had many cases in which the patients were named "Jr." or had a "II" or "III" in their name, resulting in a John Smith I, John Smith II, and John Smith III. This further facilitates a recipe for chaos. For this reason, I feel like I can say firsthand what an impact electronic medical records (EMR) can have in the medical field. Computers with patient databases can quickly run searches regarding birthdate, allergies, etc. instead of having to sift through a file and trying to decipher a doctor's scrawl.