Why do you need an electronic medical record (EMR)?
| Ramesh Devare |
Digitisation has helped many industries to move away from traditional tools/ techniques to innovative systems/ applications. Healthcare industry has adopted technology to a greater extent and electronic medical record (EMR) is one of the digital age innovations.
Electronic medical record (EMR) software exists in the healthcare industry since past few years. In US, EMR software has been adopted by various clinics, physicians and hospitals and it has been a support system to meet regular data need of physicians, clinics, hospitals, patients and government compliance.
In India, awareness about the EMR softwares have increased in the recent years and physicians have started exploring the need for an EMR. While exploring EMR softwares the following are the most important questions that come to mind.
Questions before exploring an EMR Software
Do we really need an EMR Software?
The above question can be answered differently based on the type of practice, priority and need for the health records . The possible answer could be “Yes”, “No” or “Do not know”.
How will an EMR software help?
Again the answer would be based on the type of practice, priority and need for the health records. The possible answer could be “Yes, surely it will help”, “No, it will not help” or “Do not know”.
However, to answer these questions, it is important to know what an EMR software can offer.
Why should you explore an EMR software?
Following are some of the typical situations that physicians come across in their day-to-day work:
- Store and maintain patient medical records
- Sharing of patient health records with other physicians or clinic or hospital
- Using existing records for physicians/patients/clinics/hospital needs
- Maintaining confidentiality of patients’ health records
- Extraction of data for R&D purpose
- Lab report analysis and future reference
- Study patients’ medical history and come up with trends
- Patients’ medication study and analysis
- Review patient reports
- Study patient trends and analyse patterns
- Share patient education information
- Provide relevant patients’ health records to referred physicians
- Provide data to state/ central government agencies on need basis
- Generate periodic reports at clinic or hospital level
- Practice management
Above mentioned are situtions which physicians come across every day, and with the traditional devices it is difficult and challenging to manage these on a regular basis. But, with EMR adoption these situations can be handled very efficiently.
How can an EMR software help with day-to-day situations?
The purpose of an EMR software is to help physicians to organise patients’ medical records, manage physicians practice records and meet compliance and regulatory needs at the practice level. Based on the choice of the EMR software, it also helps in handling patient billing, claims management and e-prescription needs.
Most of the EMR softwares are equipped to handle day-to-day situations at clinics and hospitals. The figure below provides information about the critical elements that EMR handles for a physician’s practice.
Questions after exploring an EMR
After understanding the importance of EMR for day-to-day circumstances, physicians shall have better answers.
Do we really need an EMR?
Yes, to organise day-to-day, patients’ medical records maintenance EMR can surely help. It will also help to improve the overall patient’s care.
How will EMR help me?
EMR will help physicians to improve their productivity, efficiency and improve the overall patient care by providing patient portal and educating patients.
Conclusion
Having understood the purpose of an EMR software and how it helps physicians, it is advised that clinics and hospitals should adopt EMR. Choosing the right EMR software will be a challenge. However, based on a physician’s need, EMR experts at RxOffice Inc can set up a demo on request for interested parties to walk through the RxOffice-EMR.
The author can be reached at ramesh.devare@rxoffice.us