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| It is wisely said "Health is wealth". So the next question is what makes a good health – Balanced diet, sound sleep, peaceful mind. Does it end here? I would say no. Adding to it, a good health is also regarded as a shared responsibility in which different people work together to foster good health across". Apart from the individual himself, one other person who plays a major role in ensuring a patient's good health care is the physician with whom an individual is tied with. So it is very much essential that the physician is providing proper suggestions, right treatment and most importantly, is well equipped with the latest health care technology tools to ensure at least 3 minimal important things i.e. right treatment, patients health data integrity ,maintain privacy. One such most talked software in the US is EMR. Recently there has been a strong push throughout the US healthcare industry for doctors to convert to EMR. So what's an EMR? |
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| Electronic medical records, abbreviated as EMR, can be defined as a electronic store of medical records of patient, such as their past medical history, substances or drugs they are allergic to, the treatments or medical procedures they underwent in the past, history of family hereditary details, previous drug prescriptions, all the previous charges and all relevant information that a provider may need at any point of time to ensure proper diagnosis of the ailment. The data may also inform you which medications the patient is currently on and the transcription notes etc. Comprehensiveness in the patients' data is one of the advantages of electronic medical records. |
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| Recently there has been a strong push throughout the US healthcare industry for doctors to convert to EMR. Lately it has been a record for increased rate of EMR adoption, reason being new product innovations, new government initiatives encouraging EMR, economic pressures, improved patient awareness, and an improved attitude towards EMR among physicians. |
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| Here are some of the many reasons why providers are moving to EMR: |
| Running through a short story of situations that a completely paper based Health care organization would come across: A receptionist working in a practice could leave for the day, only after finding and arranging the records that are committed to the papers of the patients on the next day's appointments' list. In case she failed to do so, or if she failed to turn up on time due to some kind of emergency, then what would rule across the whole medical practice? Confusion! She is the one who would know, precisely, which stack of records contains the bunch of papers that represents so and so patient. |
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| Ease of Retrieval of patients Medical Records from anywhere |
| The provider can retrieve any patient's records within a few seconds. All he has to do is to key in the patients name in the form that the EMR software has presented to use. In no time, the records are right in front of him. And there is no struggling to decipher someone else's handwriting (as in the case of traditional paper based approach), in order to read what kind of therapy or treatment the patient underwent in the past. |
| In an online EMR software, a provider can access his patient's data not only at his office but from anywhere in the world through the Internet, restricting his access to only that part of the data which the provider is supposed to know and not all the data which ensures security. |
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| Safety & Privacy |
| Patient's data safety is an important factor. Maintaining the privacy of every patient's health information is one of the most important things in the U.S. Having proper backup systems, latest antivirus in the system and appropriate role privileges assigned to every module in the EMR, can help overcome any data loss or data leakage issues. |
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| Data Format |
| In case of an EMR, a physician can key in data in one format and can retrieve it in another, in a form more suitable to him, be it any kind of reports required for patients reference or any Standard data format required by the referring physicians to be provided to a referred provider. |
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| Integration and EMR Software |
| The EMR software will not only help in storing the recommended CPT, and the Diagnosis details, it also helps the provider by additional information about a drug, such as dosages for children and adults or any allergies recorded for the patient in the past, which helps in deciding the drugs not suitable for a patient. It may also help you in studying a condition by producing 3-D images for you, by taking input of 2-D images that are already present in your patient's data. The software also handles the medical transcription notes, as well as SOAP notes. The customer support to medical billing services can also be an added advantage in the EMR software. This may result in the speedy settlement of medical billing and claims for a provider because of the proper co-ordination with the insurance companies over medical insurance. |
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| Electronic Data and EMR Software |
| An additional feature incorporated in recent EMR's have the provision of processing and analyzing errors in the electronic data generated by the systems monitoring the patient. This software can sound or raise an alert, if it comes across an event needing immediate medical intervention. It can transmit the relevant data in the form of an email or warn the physician by sending a message to his/her pager or mobile. It can also accept data from the laboratory analyzer in an electronic form directly and thus, avoiding the chance of erroneous data being fed to it by a computer operator. |
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| In addition to all the above advantages, there are certainly few challenges every health care organization would face while moving to an EMR. It may be a challenge for the staff while adapting to a technology driven system as compared to the traditional paper based approach or challenges in the installation of an EMR. These challenges can be overcome by providing prior training to the staff on how to use the system, providing manuals, brochures, specifying hardware prerequisites and having a good IT Support team while installation of a EMR. On the other hand, it's the responsibility of the IT team to assure quality, accuracy of the system and to provide support on a regular basis. |
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| Primarily, it is the physician who is going to be benefitted by converting to electronic medical records. It would help the staff to be more efficient and spend good amount of time with the patient as EMR requires less time for recording the patient data in comparison to the paper driven data capture process. The patients' data in its digital form will always be available at the physician's fingertips and not be dependent on the mindless activity of searching for it every day. The world is going digital in every field due to quality and its efficiency. |
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| Quoting William Foster, "Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives." So the adoption of EMR's in practices is definitely a move in the right direction towards achieving quality in global health care. |
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