Electronic Medical Records software, (also known as Electronic Health Records software), is a collection of patient’s health information and medical records stored electronically that can be transferred from one healthcare facility to another. Majority of physicians and healthcare organizations nowadays use EMR Software solutions to increase efficiency, reduce workload and improve patient care.
Today as we experience improved standards of quality in the field of healthcare, the EMR market has grown tremendously with hundreds of EMR vendors including top EHR vendors like Athenahealth, AdvancedMD, Kareo, drchrono, ChiroTouch, eClinicalWorks, PrognoCis, Epic, Modernizing Medicine, ChartLogic, CareCloud, and CureMD to name a few. It won’t be wrong to say that EHR is the main cause of this revolution in the healthcare world.
There are various benefits of using EHR Software for patients and especially doctors due to which almost all the well-known medical providers and healthcare facilities have converted and are still converting from traditional paper charts to EHR Software solutions, some of which are as follows:
Enhanced privacy and security of medical records
Use of EMR Systems enhances privacy and ensures the security of patient information. The medical records are stored safely electronically rather than the old way of paper charts available out in the open, thus more prone to natural hazards, forgery, or being lost. On the other hand, patient information stored in an EMR software is less likely to be lost or damaged (as it can be backed up) and cannot be accessed by everyone, enhancing privacy and security.
Reduced wait times for patients
EHR System makes it a lot easier for the clinical staff and the physicians to pull up patient information in a single click, saving them and the patients a lot of time and hassle as compared to paper records which are difficult to manage and take a long time to search from.
Ease of access and communication between clinicians
Medical records stored in an EMR database can be accessed on multiple devices and securely and quickly shared (with patient’s consent) with other departments and physicians to discuss a rare medical case, involving zero costs as compared to the old method of paper charts which took a lot of time to share and involved additional costs.
Availability and easy access to medical reports
Most of the strong EMR integrates with a Patient Portal through which patients can communicate directly with their doctors and access their medical reports anytime, anywhere in the world, from multiple devices as soon as they become available. This makes communication much faster and simpler.
No Memory-based treatments
Electronic Medical Records solutions have records of treatments and diagnosis of diseases which are much safer as opposed to manual, memory-based treatments reducing risks of bad treatment and improving care. This helps medical providers diagnose the disease effectively and minimizes errors.
Reliable Prescriptions
EHR allows physicians to prescribe medicines electronically. E-prescribing (e-Rx) EMR software has proven to be much reliable and safer than the traditional hand-written prescriptions which involved the risk of errors and spelling mistakes resulting in pharmacists to misunderstand and giving away wrong medicines.
Improved management
Cloud-based EMR Software involves the lesser use of papers which helps medical practices save a lot of space resulting them to have clean and tidy workstations. This ultimately helps increase productivity and facilitates improved access to documentation as opposed to traditional paper-based methods for charting which result in messy clinics, with papers spread all over causing mismanagement and chaos. These digital records help especially in case of emergencies as they speed up the process and make it much simpler for the doctor to refer the entire patient data much quicker than paper documents.
Know your patients better
EMR software systems help record and maintain complete and up-to-date information of a patient including patient’s history helping physicians know their patients better (medically) and to be able to give them better treatment and make better decisions regarding their treatment increasing patient care.
Adverse Drug Reactions
A strong Electronic Health Record solution records Adverse Drug Reactions (ADR) ensuring that the patients have full knowledge of all the possible reactions they might experience while taking the drug increasing patient’s safety.
Other benefits include:
- EMR integrated with medical billing software, enhances a clinic’s ability to process patient billing in an effective and accurate manner.
- Reduced transcription services, labor expenses, and other operational costs.
- Increased number of patients served in a day, resulting in high profitability for practices and medical providers.
