Philosophical Views of The EHR
Within a meta-narrative systematic review of research in the field, Prof. Trish Greenhalgh and colleagues defined a number of different philosophical approaches to the EHR. The health information systems literature has seen the EHR as a container holding information about the patient, and a tool for aggregating clinical data for secondary uses (billing, audit etc.). However, other research traditions see the EHR as a contextualised artifact within a socio-technical system. For example, actor-network theory would see the EHR as an actant in a network (e.g.), while research in computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) sees the EHR as a tool supporting particular work.
Several possible advantages to EHRs over paper records have been proposed, but there is debate about the degree to which these are achieved in practice (e.g.).
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