Benefits Of Electronic Health Record

Are you familiar with the term EHR? It is quite a familiar term in the medical field. EHR stands for Electronic Health Record. Electronic Health Record is a process of collection of a person’s health status in digital format. EHRs data consists of various parameters, including demographics, medical history, medication and allergies, immunization status, laboratory test results, radiology images, vital signs, personal statistics like age and weight, and billing information.

Nowadays, more and more healthcare facilities, from hospitals to private practices are moving from paper charts to electronic medical records or electronic health records. The advantages of electronic health records in the clinical setting are very large in numbers and are very reasonable as well as important. In the 2012 edition of the Physician Sentiment Index, published by athenahealth and Sermo, 81% of physicians said they believe EHRs improve access to clinical data. More than two-thirds said that they believe an EHR can actually improve patient care. Electronic Health Record is not only advantageous for medical practitioners but also for the patients. Let’s discuss its various advantages and benefits in the further depth of the article.

Benefits to Medical practitioners or healthcare providers

• When a patient is under the care of many doctors, tracking his or her history like the allergies, blood type, current medications, past procedures, and other relevant information, can be a little bit difficult for medical practitioners when relying on paper charts. The use of electronic health records allows multiple care providers or health practitioners or doctors, regardless of location, to simultaneously access a patient’s record from any computer.

• Medical errors are greatly reduced by the use of Electronic Health Records. This is one of the tremendous benefits to both doctor and patient. An electronic health records system of information eliminates the problem of lost and/or misplaced patient files.

• Medical practitioners can quickly transfer patient data or information to other practitioners, departments or providers. So it saves a lot of time and it can help keep a facility’s schedule on track.

• No bulky paper records are needed to store, manage. So it becomes easier for the medical staffs as well for the professionals and health practitioners to handle the medical data or the information.

• It gives a particular hospital the ability to establish and maintain effective clinical workflows.

Benefits to the patients

• According to experts, Electronic health records or EHR contain significantly less number of errors than paper records.

• Electronic health records or EHR can save time during a practitioner’s office visit. And in case of emergency, these records can provide critical, life-saving information to emergency care providers.

• People some extreme cases like in mass casualty situations, such as natural disasters, can be benefitted greatly from electronic medical records or EMR or EHR. Healthcare providers or doctors can use EHR in an emergency situation to get a more accurate picture of a patient’s medical history more quickly as compared to those old traditional means.

With an EHR or electronic health record system, doctors can immediately place orders for a particular task of laboratory work. This reduces the chance of an error occurring because the handwriting of the doctor is difficult to decipher. This benefit extends to the placement of a prescription order as well. An electronic order can be sent directly to the pharmacy of choice for a patient. By the time a person gets to the pharmacy, their order could potentially be ready.

Nowadays many hospitals or medicals are adapting themselves to this modern system of the electronic health record. However, despite these advantages, there are some disadvantages as well like chances of ransomware attacks or hacking of the data, its high costs, it also requires regular updates etc. The professionals should also keep in mind these disadvantages.

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