An EMR or Electronic Medical Record is the digital version of a medical chart used by doctors and nurses to evaluate patients during their visits. These EMRs are not designed to be shared outside your practice, and they are used primarily to diagnose and treat patients.
An EHR or Electronic Health Record is a digital record of health information. These forms of health records are designed to be shared between practices, no matter where your patient needs to go for treatment. EHRs help to streamline the sharing and updating of patient information in real-time.
While both EMRs and EHRs have some of the same information, the main difference is in the sharing capability of the EHRs. These digital records make health information instantly accessible to providers across the healthcare industry. Promoting cooperative care and enhancing the ability for healthcare providers to make informed clinical decisions from the shared critical data.
Advantages of an EHR
Sharing information is nothing new, so why is sharing through an EHR any better than the old system of sharing files through fax and secured email? Well, an EHR is based on a software application and adds information management tools to help providers better organize, interpret, and react to the data. The data in an EHR is designed to grow as the patient goes from healthcare providers to labs to hospital and so on. Allowing the EHR to dynamically grow and create a complete vision of the patient's health and treatments. Another exciting aspect of an EHR is that these systems will enable the patient to access their health information with the same ease as their healthcare providers, promoting patient engagement with their health.
Disadvantages of an EHR
EHRs are typically more expensive to implement. Requiring an investment of time to configure the proper technology and train individuals on how to use them. Another aspect is that everything is digital, so if you don’t have some form of storage backup and the system goes down, there is a chance you could lose patient data.
Bringing It All Together
As a healthcare practice or organization, your main goal is to help your patients, but we understand that there are other factors to consider when deciding what systems to use. Cost, Time, and required technology are just a few. That being said, the benefits of implementing an EMR and EHR outweigh the disadvantages, especially when you have a leading healthcare-specific Managed Service Provider (MSP) like Medicus IT on your side. We have more than fifteen years of experience providing solutions for over 1,000 locations across the country. Our expertise shines through the testimonials from our clients. If you're interested in upgrading your old paper record system to an EHR, let us help you choose the right system for your practice. Our free network assessment will help give us the right information to determine what your practice needs and how we can help with the transition. “We do IT Right” so that you can do what you do best: take care of your patients.
