By Deborah Hill
Electronic health record is actually a systematic collection of the health information that is electronic about a particular patient or a group of them. It is like a record that is not kept in a manual manner but in a digital way. This electronic health record can be sent to different health care organizations or settings. As all the information of a patient is in a single file, it becomes easier to extract the medical information. It helps in the examination of the changes that the patient is undergoing for a long term or the possible trend that he is undergoing. This record implementation has so become very important to increase the effectiveness of the medical check up.
There have been several discussions about whether EHR or this record helps in improvement of the quality of the medical care. EHRs certainly do improve the coordination in the medical care provided to the patient. This is because doctors now do not have to work on assumptions about the history of the patient. They can see the history themselves. Also it smoothen the changes that the patient undergoes in his life time between care settings. It helps in a better way especially in an emergency situation.
Keeping an EHR will certainly cost you a bit high. Also there is an uncertainty about the provider of EHR about the value that they will take from the adoption process in the shape of return on the invested money has a very significant impact on adopting electronic health records. Thus it has been concluded by authorities that the saving of costs can only happen in bigger institutions and not in every small clinic.
Doctors are taking up technologies that the smart phones offer rapidly. It has been noted that they use mobile gadgets while performing their jobs. This is because they can easily sync with an electronic health record. This helps the physicians to access the record of their patients even from a remote area. Thus it is a great electronic health record implementation. Most of these mobile devices use variety of software to access EHR files at any place. Though there are many advantages to the instant access it may question about security and privacy.
There are both indented and accidental consequences to electronic health record systems. Some of the accidental results of the EHR related errors in medical field are EOC (the errors due to commission), EDA (errors occurring while analysing the data), EOT (errors of omission during transmission) and ISMA (incompatibility of different vendors or software systems or applications).
Electronic health records training should be given properly and it should be done by organizations who are an expert in this field. Otherwise neither the record would be proper nor will be the analysis of health.
