EHR: The Future of Healthcare

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Electronic Health Record (EHR) is a digital medical record of a patient’s healthcare information. Find out the advantages of EHR over EMR.

EHR is the future of healthcare, because they offer critical data that can aid clinical decisions. With the use of an EHR, you can achieve flawless coordination between everyone in the healthcare ecosystem.

What is EHR?

A digital medical record of a patient’s health information is known as EHR or electronic health record and usually contains all the information that you would find on a paper chart and a lot more. Apart from including relevant information like medical history, progress notes, allergies or imaging reports, they also contain insurance information, demographic data and other such information.

How is EHR different from EMR?

EMR or electronic medical record refers to what you will find in a paper chart, like a list of medications, possible allergies, medical history or immunization dates. EMRs work great within a practice, but are limited outside the practice. For instance, you would have to print and mail a person’s medical records.

While EMR is a digital version of a chart, EHR is a digital record of healthcare information. EHR is streamlined and data can be updated and shared in real-time. An EMR on the other hand cannot be shared easily outside the practice. If a patient uses EHR, information can be easily moved along with them. This is not the same with EMR.

The benefits of an EHR lies not only in the data that it contains, but also on how it is shared. An EHR can make healthcare information immediately accessible to authorized healthcare providers and healthcare organizations, assisting them to make informed clinical decisions and coordinate proper care. A patient’s information can be easily shared across imaging facilities, labs, pharmacies and specialists.

What are the advantages of using EHR?

  • When compared with paper records, an EHR can help providers to offer better care through efficient organization and interpretation of data.
  • EHR software can be used to analyze aggregate data for research and management. Clinical reminder alerts can also be set.
  • The EHR system is interactive and can not only collect more data, but also avail additional information.
  • EHRs can efficiently coordinate between healthcare providers and offer critical data for clinical decisions.
  • Unlike EMR, the EHR system is designed to focus on the total health of the patient. It goes beyond simply collecting and compiling information. Since EHR is built to share information with other providers, even data from specialists and laboratories can be easily collected.
  • When using an EHR, information can easily move with the patient to another hospital, specialist, nursing home or even state/country. EHRs can be easily accessed by anyone involved in the care of the patient.

An EHR is more expensive to implement initially, as you would need to invest in the proper hardware, training and support, along with the right software. Unless and EHR is properly built, there can be chances of malfunction. Why not consider outsourcing healthcare software services and save on cost, time and effort?

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