THE 5 RIGHTS OF AN EMR
By Bonnie Fefferman
Safety guidelines regarding Medical Administration, referred to by the medical community as
the “5 Rights,” have been established as:
- Right Patient
- Right Time & Frequency of Administration
- Right Dose
- Right Route of Administration
- Right Drug
These same guidelines can also be applied to the Cerner® Electronic Medical Record (EMR).
Right Patient
With the functionality of CORE® Person Management, we can begin to realize the benefits of
standard CORE® concepts. With CORE® concepts of Code Sets, Data Normalization, Organizations and
Locations, Event Sets and Codes, Contributing Systems and Sources and Security, we build the
parameters for Person Match and Reconcile. Thus, we can help ensure the right patient the first
time, every time.
Right Time & Frequency of Administration
Order’s Management allows for automation of work flow processes. This provides a safety net
for clinicians by preventing errors of omission and presenting best practice guidelines at the
Order Entry level. Care Sets are designed and built to provide a mechanism for the HealthCare
Provider to order multiple orderables through a single mnemonic. Predefined Order Sentences will
help to drive the right time and frequency of the orderable.
Right Dose
The Clinical Event database consists of event codes and event sets. Event codes are the
storage mechanism for results. They are site-specific, unique and are determined by the types of
data that your facility will store in the OCF database. Once they are defined in a Production
environment they cannot be changed. By doing so this will allow for results to always be
available for safe clinical decision making. Each code is mapped to a Primitive Event Set and it
is at this level the result is displayed. By designing and building the event code to represent
the right dose mapped to the right event set we allow for result viewing in a structured clinical
manner.
Right Route of Administration
Requisition routing is used to define the right route of a request for service or a change to
a service. While building the parameters, we can define whether a requisition prints, where it
prints and the format. As an example, a provider may order a radiology exam then cancel the exam
and order another. With requisition routing built, the Radiology Department will receive the
first order, cancel and then receive the second order in a timely manner thereby decreasing the
risk of completing the first ordered diagnostic study.
Right Drug
Relational databases are used to store information in tables. These databases may contain
thousands of tables. The tables will store information in a structure that contains columns and
rows. In the Cerner data model each table is assigned a unique name that will reflect the
information stored on that table. There are three goals of a relational database:
- Storing information for similar objects on one table
- Uniquely identifying every row on a table
- Limiting duplicate data
With this concept in mind, the Cerner data model proves to be an efficient method of data
storage by reducing redundancy while preserving the integrity of the data. By applying the right
drug, i.e. table, to the right route, right dose, right time and frequency we enable Order Entry
and Results Review to the right patient.
For more information about EMR, contact us at 610-444-1233 or visit our website at
www.getvitalized.com.