The Various Pros And Cons Of An Electronic Health Record System

An electronic health record (EHR) refers to a system that supports the storage of patient health information in an electronic digital data format in order to provide more efficient and advanced patient health care. It is extremely important to hire the services of a reputed and knowledgeable firm, which has the reputation of using the highest quality tools and advanced technologies in transferring data from document to electronic digital format. Patient health information generally includes patient demographics, health problems, progress reports, medications, medical history, immunizations and laboratory and radiology reports. The term EHR is often used to describe the software system that handles patient records preserved by a hospital or medical practice.

In today’s world, where almost every business is getting computerized, the medical field is not lagging behind. With digitization, the medical system is witnessing a remarkable progress in the efficiency of the staffs and an improvement in patient satisfactions.

Access to Health records from Anywhere: Electronic health records provide access to patient health information from any location, which can prove to be extremely beneficial for health care practitioners, especially if they are away from their office.

Provide Doctors Access to your Medical Data: In case you need to discuss your health records with your physician on an emergency basis, you can provide them access to your online medical data from anywhere and anytime. It also enables you to choose the health information you want to share with your physician at that moment.

Increases Efficiency: Owing to the fact that there is a great deal of complexities involved in the field of patient care and security, an electronic health record, maintaining detailed patient information helps immensely in making the system much more efficient, quicker and cost-effective. It helps a great deal in improving the standard of care provided by health care centers and practitioners.

Saves Time: An EHR system stores important and detailed information regarding patient admissions, their past medical history and the treatment procedures used for them. This is extremely helpful for staffs to enter and access patient data, thereby saving a great deal of their time. This system also prevents the use of too many unnecessary resources.

However, there are certain disadvantages of using an EHR as well. Let us discuss in brief:

Privacy: One of the major problems that might arise with electronic health records is privacy related issue. In case the privacy rules are not appropriately followed, the use of EHR software can sometime put an organization at risk. An EHR can involve the chances for identity theft in case unauthorized people get access to confidential patient records.

Loss of Data: There is a chance of losing patient data in case of being EHR. Any malfunctioning of the online system can lead to a complete loss of patient information.

Getting Adjusted to the New System: Implementing an EHR system would require practice and education for both medical practitioners to adjust to the new way of patient care and staffs to get accustomed to the new way of storing patient data.

Expensive: The conversion of patient health records from a paper system to an EHR can be an extremely expensive procedure.

Despite all the cons, an electronic health care system can unquestionably make it easier for health care practitioners and staffs to achieve their goals.

Source by Donald Finch