The relationship between using electronic health records and meeting accreditation standards for client safety in residential aged care homes

This study aims to identify the benefits of using electronic health records (EHR) for client safety in residential aged care (RAC) homes. The aged care accreditation reports published between 27 April 2011 and 3 December 2013 were downloaded and analysed. It could be seen from these reports that only 1,031(37.45%) RAC homes in Australia had adopted an EHR system by 2013. 13 RAC homes failed one or more accreditation standards. Only one of these was using an EHR system and this one met the accreditation standards on information systems. Our study provides empirical evidence to suggest that adopting and using EHR can be one of the effective organisational mechanisms to meeting accreditation standards in RAC homes.