Volume 3 Issue 12 December, 2013
Electronic Medical Record (EMR) in current day practice
Today the buzz word in the world is digitalization, with gadgets virtually controlling all our daily routine activities. Over the past decade, every major industry has invested heavily in computerization and so is in the case of health care industry. EMRs are defined as “a longitudinal electronic record of patient health information generated by one or more encounters in any care delivery setting. Included in this information are patient demographics, progress notes, problems, medications, vital signs, past medical history, immunizations, laboratory data, and radiology reports”. Doctors use specialized software, which allows them to enter information electronically and makes patient’s complete history available immediately. Physicians can use a desktop, laptop, tab or electronic clipboard to navigate though
patients’ charts and record notes.
When weighing the pros and cons of electronic medical records, there are key advantages and disadvantages. The benefits include; significantly fewer errors found within personal health records, faster care and decision making responses from assigned medical professionals, the space saving benefit of a digital records environment, reduced operational costs such as transcription services and overtime labor expenses, customizable and scalable electronic medical records, advanced e-prescribing and clinical documentation capabilities, better processing of patient billing, ease of transferring patients data to another professional and ease of mobility with the new cloud technology. Disadvantages like perceived threat to privacy, lose of human oversight, lack of standardization and cost have to be
considered before its implementation.
EMR adoption must be considered one of many approaches that diversify our focus on quality improvement and cost reduction in the near future.
