CMU researchers win best paper at business and technology conference

Recent graduates Ferdousi Zaman and Brenden Roth worked with primary authors Professor Mark A. Cwiek, J.D. of the Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow College of Health Professions and Dean George Kikano, M.D. of the College of Medicine in winning the Best Paper at the 24th annual Global Business and Technology Association (GBATA) Conference. Ferdousi Zaman was an international student and a May 2023 graduate of the Master of Science in Administration Program. Brenden Roth was a bachelor’s graduate with a Biology major. The paper is titled “Electronic Health Records: The Wonders and The Worries.” 

The paper explains the “wonders” of electronic health records (EHRs) in the medical field. These wonders include better maintaining, storing, and sharing of health records which means fewer medical errors, organizational benefits, and improvement in conducting research. 

 The “worries” include physician burnout, the potential for irrelevant information, security breaches, and compromised privacy. Clinicians find that the task of filling out EHRs is much more time-consuming than in the past which is leading to burnout of the professionals. EHRs also take away some of the clinicians' attention from the patient as they are spending more time inputting information into a computer.  

The biggest worry with EHRs is the potential for a security breach and private health data being compromised. According to the paper, “In 2021, more than forty million patient records were known to have been compromised.” The data that was compromised included private information including social security numbers, medical details, lab results, prescriptions, and more. The authors also emphasized the importance of the human connection between clinician and patient and that medical software can help alleviate the EHR demands on clinicians.

Zaman hopes that this paper will help implement systems in the medical field that protect patients and increase the benefits of EHRs. She has a passion for research and plans to take all research opportunities she has in the future. Roth is now continuing his graduate education at Oklahoma State University.

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