An EHR, also known as an electronic health record, is an electronic version of the patient’s medical history, which is properly maintained by the provider and can include all the required administrative and clinical data that are important for the person’s treatment.
Those pieces of data can include progress notes, demographics, medications, health issues, and many more. The EHR and EMR software is a specific computer system that can help healthcare experts manage patients’ medical records and even automate clinical tasks.
With the help of effective EHR and EMR software, healthcare providers can make customized templates to take notes during patient encounters. Discussed further are the five important benefits of the EHR below.
The five benefits of the EHR or electronic health record
As mentioned earlier, EHRs allow healthcare providers to record and exchange medical and patient record information electronically. Thus, it can eliminate the requirements for medical records in paper forms and all the hassles of the attendants.
Though EHRs are not perfect; however, if implemented properly, they can offer substantial benefits over traditional paper records. The top five of those benefits are:
- It can offer safer and high-quality care
Simply put, EHRs are more than just a digital form of paper medical records. The EHRs can offer an up-to-date and accurate record of the patient’s medical history and information.
Those digital reports can include evidence-based tools to help medical experts make the right decisions regarding their patients’ health.
With the help of effective EHR and EMR software, physicians can offer guideline-based care. While working with paper records, professionals can miss opportunities to offer care with the up-to-date clinical guidelines applicable to each patient.
In contrast, EHRs can ensure that accurate guidelines can support each and every review whenever required. EHRs also ensure that all the allergies of a specific patient are reported during his/her health examination and prescribing medications.
- It can offer up-to-date and accurate information
EHRs can provide an up-to-date and comprehensive record of a patient’s medical history, including medications, diagnoses, radiology images, treatment strategies, immunization dates, allergies, laboratory test results, and many more.
EHRs also enable healthcare providers to document encounters, ensuring accurate and complete records that can be reviewed by other office staff whenever needed. With the help of an EHR, you can share a patient’s medical information with authorized clinics across several hospitals, offices, and referral partners.
- It can improve productivity and efficiency
Another crucial benefit offered by EHRs is improved productivity and efficiency over a long period of time. EHRs can save time by automating receipt of test results, centralizing chart management, and even reducing the paper works of a patient; thus, medical experts can check more patients than before.
With the help of EHR report tools, you can practice and monitor progress on quality measures. With the help of data-sharing features, you can effectively communicate with clinicians, patients, health plans, etc.
- It can improve the security and privacy of patients
With the help of EHRs, access to the patient’s medical records is granted only to authorized individuals. Thus, the reports and medical history of a patient can remain secured. In this way, the privacy of patients can be maintained properly.
For more tips to keep patient data secure, check out the infographic below!
Infographic provided by MCRA, a clinical research organization with expertise in European medical device regulation
- It can reduce costs
Along with productivity, privacy, and efficiency, EHRs can also help by reducing the cost of non-clinical labor. Filling the medical record forms or performing other tasks like recalling those, checking records for follow-ups, office visits, etc., can be troublesome and costly. With the help of EHRs, all of these tasks can be performed automatically, resulting in cost reduction.
As shown above, there are numerous benefits of opting for efficient EHR and EMR software that you can enjoy.
