Benefits Of An Electronic Health Record ( Emr )

Electronic health records (EHR) are health records that are generated by health care professionals when a patient is seen at a medical facility such as a hospital, mental health clinic, or pharmacy. The EHR contains the same information as paper based medical records like demographics, medical complaints and prescriptions. There are so many more benefits to the EHR than paper based medical records. Accuracy of diagnosis, quality and convenience of patient care, and patient participation are a few examples of the

EHRs help your doctors coordinate your care and protect your safety - Since all my information as a patient is contained in the EHR system all of my doctors know what medications I am taking, whether it will interact with other medication, if I am allergic to any medication or if a particular drug did not work out for me in the past. This saves me from any risk of the wrong medication being prescribed and the cost of talking medication that does not work for me.

Change itself is never easy and sometimes the road of working out the kinks in a system can be quite frustrating. However, once implemented, the work load is lightened, and the time has come to reap the many benefits of EHR 's. Once implemented EHR 's will make every staff member 's job easier and here are some of the many ways it does just that! First, EHR 's reduce paperwork and eliminate both confusion and errors caused by the infamous “physicians ' handwriting”. This in turn results in less human errors and less duplication of effort. With EHR 'S we are no longer chasing charts, or even worse, loosing them all together. Just think of all the space that is saved by no longer having to store paper charts. With the implementation of EHR 's every healthcare member including all staff, physicians, hospitals, and insurance companies can share in enhanced information which results in much improved patient care, and an improvement in overall management of a practice. Everyone wins! With EHR 's data regarding reports from labs, radiology, tests, and procedures can be shared with all involved resulting in better outcomes in patient care. For the medical biller and coder, EHR 's allow a much quicker ability to electronically file a claim instead of handwriting it out on a paper claim. With EHR 's we have more accurate claims with less rejections resulting in speedy claims. A medical office specialist no longer has to take time

The cons of an EHR are part of the driving force behind the model restricted from the need to integrate EHRs throughout the health system and share information with network of referring hospitals. However, this sharing of information is often not possible (EHR,2013). Finding a hospital partner that is willing to open the lines of communication is critical to the success. The cost associated with EHRs is often a deterrent. Not only must the provider pay for the physical hardware and/or software, the organization must also put forth a considerable dollar amount for setup, maintenance, training, IT support and system updates (EHR,2013). With EHRs, much more documentation is required of physicians before, during and after a patient visit. This has its pros and cons. For example, a benefit of more strong documentation is that it provides additional information for the coders that may justify a higher level of service being billed(EHR,2013).

There are certainly diverse reviews from staff and practitioners alike on the advantages and challenges of electronic health records (EHR). The transition from paper to EHR is involved and perplexing. There are many incentives, both from a financial and production perspective, but the route to implementation of an EHR system can be daunting to a hospital or practice group. Both staff and patients can be effected, both positively and negatively. As you stated in your post, physicians will not be obligated to wait for patient charts or outside records and reports. A physician can simply log in and all the information is readily available to him. But many physicians, staff and patients have become cumbersome. The transition to EHR has required

Moving to an EHR can be difficult and the advantages may be unclear and the disadvantages may seem immense. The EHR is an electronic version of a patient’s medical history, maintained by the provider over time, and includes all administrative, clinical data relevant to that persons care under a particular provider, including demographics, diagnosis, progress notes, medications, vital signs, past medical history, immunizations, lab and radiology reports. (CMS.gov, 2011). The principle object here is

Most hospitals, medical practices across the United States are transitioning to electronic health care record system to improve quality measures and manage the number of patients they can generate, retrieve, and accumulate. However, the ambulatory care providers usually don’t use EHR technology to the full extent of its power because it associates barriers that stand in the way of changing medical practices. In this case, the EHR will also examine some of the advantages and disadvantages while medical practitioners make their decision. In ambulatory care, there are many advantages of using electronic medical records, such as increasing the cyber security level and privacy safety, eliminating medical errors, and improving the quality of care.

One pro of the EHR is that it makes accessing patient information faster since you can easily bring it up on a computer as opposed to going through physical copies. This allows patients to be dealt with properly according to their records.  While the EHR has many benefits,  the one pitfall is that since all this data is made so accessible,  patient information is vulnerable to attack by hackers and those who misuse their authorized access to such information. This puts patients at risk of this information were to be exposed. This is a considerable risk when patients' lives are at stake. EHRs can improve patient health literacy by making information readily assessable to patients to help them make well informed health care decisions. It also empowered patients to take control in managing some clinical conditions that requires skills needed to take care of themselves (Watson,

The implementation of EHR’s in hospitals, laboratories, and physician offices are more prevalent; they are encouraging the patients to access their records online. Furthermore, doctors have access to consults, radiology reports, and emergency department details at the stroke of a key. This allows for a comprehensive assessment of the patient; without governmental mandates for interoperability of EMRs, this will remain to be inconsistent in the healthcare field.

As per the results obtained in the national survey of doctors revealed the following key information:

Electronic health record and electronic medical record (EMR) are often used interchangeably within the health care industry, but they actually mean different things in the regulatory arena. An EHR refers to an aggregate of a patient’s EMR data that is generated over time by various institutions and can be shared among them. An institution can use EHR technology only if it has an EMR system that is capable of interoperating with other EMR systems.

The EHR is a more comprehensive record that goes far beyond the data collected in the EMR and includes a more complete patient history. One example is that EHR’s are comprised by design to integrate information from all health providers that are involved in a patient’s care. This health data can be produced, managed, and referred by approved health providers and other professional staff from many healthcare organizations. This is a disadvantage of EMR’s, because EHR’s permit a patient’s health record to move with them from one other healthcare providers to another including specialists, hospitals, nursing homes, and other states.

Researchers have found a containt between certain EHR systems and and higher rates of errors to medical records because of poorly designed systems or the users weren’t trained properly (menachemi and Collum, 2011). If the users aren’t trained properly they are most likely not inputting the information properly, leading to patients medical records to be incorrect. ACCORDING to Menachemi and Collum (2011), it is shown that have EHR within the hospital can lead to nurses and doctors to become over dependent on technology. Clinics and hospitals should be sure that basic medical care can still be provided without any technology incase a time comes when systems are down. EHRs can also lead to a change in power structure within the organization because certain jobs will no longer be needed (Menachemi and Collum, 2011). It may also cause physicians to lose their autonomy, the ability to function in an independent fashion, in making decisions for the patients “ because an EHR blocks the ordering of certain tests or medications” (Menachemi and Collum, 2011). Doctors and nurses need to make sure they know how to use the systems properly so they do not input or information improperly. They also need to ensure that they can do certain basic procedures without the use of

Similarly to EMRs, there are many ways in which EHR improves patient care. One way is by lessening the incidents of medical error by increasing the accuracy and transparency of medical records. Along with that, using EHR makes it possible to make health information easily available and accessible. It also reduces duplication of medical tests and also limits the time delay in patient treatment. These are very beneficial to overall patient care and enable patients to make better, well informed decisions. EHRs reduce medical errors by improving medical accuracy and clarity. Another way that having EHRs is beneficial is that systematizes the process of obtaining patient medical history and information.

Another big plus of the EHRs is that studies have shown that it has helped providers improve accuracy of diagnoses and health outcomes (Couch, 2008). For example, nurses could have reliable access to patients complete health information and have pictures which would help with whatever problem they might encounter. EHR doesn’t just keep patients medications and allergies, it also check for problems whenever a new medication is prescribed and it also alerts the nurse of potential problems (Couch, 2008). EHRs can also tell the nurse if potential safety problems occur, which helps them avoid more serious consequences for patients, which can lead to better outcomes. The EHRs can also help nurses quickly identify and correct operational problems, which compared to the paper-based setting, those kinds of problems would be more difficult to correct. It can also help