A medical record includes any of an individual's health documents of the types listed above. Medical records may be on "physical" media such as film (X-rays), paper (notes), or photographs, often of different sizes and shapes. Physical storage of documents is problematic, as not all document types fit in the same size folders or storage spaces. In the current global medical environment, patients are shopping for their procedures. Many international patients travel to US cities with academic research centers for specialty treatment or to pariticiate in Clinical Trials. Coordinating these appointments via paper records is a time-consuming procedure and may violate the patient's HIPAA privacy.
Physical records usually require significant amounts of space to store them. When physical records are no longer maintained, the large amounts of storage space are no longer required. Paper, film, and other expensive physical media usage (and therefore cost) is also reduced with electronic record storage.
When paper records are stored in different locations, furthermore, collecting and transporting them to a single location for review by a healthcare provider is time-consuming. When paper (or other types of) records are required in multiple locations, copying, faxing, and transporting costs are significant, as are the concerns of HIPAA compliance.
In 2004, an estimate was made that 1 in 7 hospitalizations occurred when medical records were not available. Additionally, 1 in 5 lab tests were repeated because results were not available at the point of care. Electronic medical records are estimated to improve efficiency by 6% per year, and the monthly cost of an EMR is offset by the cost of only a few unnecessary tests or admissions.[5][6]
Handwritten paper medical records can be associated with poor legibility, which can contribute to medical errors.[7] Pre-printed forms, the standardization of abbreviations, and standards for penmanship were encouraged to improve reliability of paper medical records. Electronic records help with the standardization of forms, terminology and abbreviations, and data input. Digitization of forms facilitates the collection of data for epidemiology and clinical studies.
Electronic records keeping and order entry were found to reduce errors associated with handwritten documents and were recommended for widespread adoption.[1][8]
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I read your article on electronic medical records and would like to recommend that you and your readers test drive our unique solution. MyMedicalRecords.com (MMR), a Patient Health Record, put a priority on two issues that are difficult to find together in most PHR programs and EMR systems. First is ease-of-use—all your healthcare providers need is a fax machine to put all your records into your account: each is turned into a PDF image using a proprietary process, which you then file. Second is privacy and security: we have such a bulletproof system that no hackers-for-hire have ever been able to penetrate it. You can share the account with up to 10 members of your family and each one would have secondary passwords to be sure privacy is protected. We also provide a special file that can be accessed by emergency personnel, which can have your critical information, like blood type and drug allergies. MMR is also by far the most feature-rich PHR on the market and is an Integrated Service Provider on Google Health—we have everything from a drug interaction database that red flags contraindications to calendar reminders for doctor appointments and prescription refills. If anyone wants to try this out for 30 days, just use the code TRYMMR.
Scott Smith
MyMedicalRecords.com
Smith.scott98@gmail.com
Thank you for sharing the advantages of EMR. yes electronic health records provides benefits such as storing and sharing of patients’ health records ensuring the privacy and confidentiality of patients’ information. Electronic health records wipes out all the errors, associated with the conventional paper based system. It collects and stores the patients’ health information data from all the sources like hospitals, laboratories, healthcare professionals, pharmacies and insurance companies etc.
Using EMR will help reduce the cost of paper, printing and hiring someone to organize the files. It will also help make an office space be less consumed by files and filing cabinets.
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Krisha
electronic medical records | ehr software
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