So, What Is An Electronic Health Record (EHR)?
Electronic Health Records (EHR) comes in handy for physicians when it comes to treating patients, especially the ones with chronic illness. Patients’ medical history speaks everything about their health.
These records help physicians to find exactly what they are looking for. This is extremely helpful in emergencies. EHR is the digital version of a patient’s paper record.
Electronic Health Records software helps the healthcare providers or physicians to manage the patients’ medical records easily without taking much time and increases the provider’s efficiency by automating the clinical workflows.
In simple words, it is aimed at documenting and storing a patient’s medical information/history digitally. This helps to make a more accurate diagnosis and treatment.
It helps in reducing the time taken for the providers by eliminating manual tiresome work.
It’s a modern and sophisticated tool that uses graphical representations, chart notes for recording a patient’s medical history, allergy information, test results, etc. In short, all the information regarding the patients.
EHR vs EMR: The Difference And Benefits
The terms electronic health records (EHR) and electronic medical records (EMR) are commonly used interchangeably by many. For most people, they are the same except for healthcare professionals dealing with policymaking. Let’s look into the differences in detail.
As you all know, EHR stands for electronic health records. Here, according to a source, World Health Organization (WHO) defines the term “health” as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity”.
It is a much broader term that covers more than just medical. On the other hand, the term “medical” in electronic medical records means, the things or materials related to medical procedures alone, involving diagnosis and treatments.
The interoperability facility is higher in EHR than in EMR. The access to EHRs by patients enables them to consult various doctors and reach various healthcare organizations easily.
This enables the caregivers of the patients to help with the diagnostic process and actively participate in the treatment along with the physicians.
This reduces the risk of man-made and unknown errors. EHR increases the satisfaction level of physicians, patients, and caregivers. This collaboration of caregivers, patients, and their doctors helps especially the people who suffer from unknown and rare disorders.
In addition to these benefits, electronic health records (EHR) software also enables experts in public health to get in touch with the medical information of a huge number of patients.
This became essential while fighting the COVID-19 pandemic and it will be crucial at all times to face this kind of unfortunate event.
Using this bulk patient information, the experts can help understand the disease and the symptoms, allowing the policymakers to execute steps to control the spread of infections.
EHR Software is also an amazing tool for improving the process of population health management.
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