EMR: Why Are Electronic Medical Records Such a Big Deal?
By icelink ~ Posted Thu, 07/30/2009 - 11:14
EMR (electronic medical records) is the technology "of the future" that is here with us today. This system and its software allow doctors and hospitals to store patients' medical records electronically. This allows paper to be saved and lets records be accessed more quickly by more people who might need them. Many doctors still fear the costs of implementing this technology but we'll see that they don't need to fear that at all. Everybody wins when there is implementation of EMR.
The use of electronic medical records is met with skepticism by many doctors for a few different reasons. One reason is that some doctors (in spite of how "sophisticated" they are thought of as being) simply don't want to trust this vital information to electronic storage. But these days, RAID backup and storage systems are very well-established for keeping information safe online. Doctors can also make backup copies of their records to CDs or floppies. If they want to they can even print out a copy for every one--but that defeats the cost-savings.
Keeping an electronic medical record instead of a printed one actually would save a doctor a large sum of money. The price of a quality EMR software program that enables an Internet solution to the storage and sharing of records is only a few thousand dollars. The days when a doctor had to lay out $30,000 to $50,000 for a new piece of high-tech are gone. All that is needed after that initial outlay is the cost of web-hosting and the record access fee, which is next to nothing compared to the cost of all that paper that would have to be used otherwise.
HMOs, insurance companies seeking access to applicants' medical histories, and doctors and hospitals themselves are better served by EMR than by paper record keeping. There is so much medical information on so many different people these days that speed of access for sharing or making changes to records is crucial to success--and in medicine success could mean the difference between someone's life or death. Electronic health records enable this speed and ease of multiple party access in the best way there has ever been.
Medical coding has become crucial and ever more advanced these days. Electronic medical records software is what gives this ever-more advanced medical coding its necessary platform. Electronic health records are preferred by every doctor, health insurance provider, hospital, and even payer who becomes familiar with them and uses them. What allows you to access information faster and easier--the Internet or a library from the 1980s?
There is one legitimate concern about EMR however. If it is done wrong just one error could lead to tremendous problems as the erroneous data gets spread far and wide with great speed. So proper training for all concerned, the personalization of the electronic records, diligence about the software's default settings, and choosing the medical encoding by human instead of computer means whenever possible are of the utmost importance. If these methods are followed then there should be no major problems.
We have seen now that the use of electronic health records makes the practice of medicine move along faster and easier for all concerned. We have seen that it is relatively inexpensive to implement and will allow physicians to actually save a lot of money over the use of paper record keeping. The solution seems obvious for those who haven't yet implemented EMR. That solution would be to learn more about providers and get it set up in your practice right away.
To learn more about electronic medical records and how it will impact the medical industry as the countdown to standardized compliance is approaching, please visit ElectronicMedicalRecordsManagement.com, a free service specializing in helping medical providers find the right EMR solution to meet their needs.