Electronic Health Record

Electronic Health Record

Introduction

The purpose of this study is to expand the boundaries of our knowledge by exploring some relevant information relating to the analysis of Electronic Health Record.

The Electronic Health Record is a virtual medical record that collects all the information and documents of patient's clinical products. The Electronic Health Record provides an integrated and contextualized health history of the patient to the doctor who is treating and facilitating the activities of operators and allows full respect for the privacy of the citizen. The Electronic Health Record is the foundation of information for the establishment of so-called "health network". The main objective is to innovate the processes in healthcare that makes available all relevant clinical information of the individual patient to authorized people (Walker, 2005).

In this paper, the author will explore the history EHR and its current status in the health care industry. The author will also identify those are required to use EHR. Finally, the author will assess the differences between Electronic Health Record and Personal Health Record.

Discussion

History

The EHS or Electronic Health Record has been in operation since 1960. The basic purpose of developing an electronic health record is to provide critical information of patient in a timely manner (Lehmann, 2006). The main advantage of EHS is that it can save large amount of patient data and provide critical information rapidly and precisely. The history is a source of fundamental data and a basic tool for biomedical research. The advances in information technology and the needs imposed by emerging clinical management models are increasingly favoring the use of medical records in electronic form. With this, new opportunities emerge for the use of the enormous wealth of data that resides in these systems in educational and research environments. The most frequent uses of EHR research today consist of new diagnostic and therapeutic solutions, conducting technology assessment, study of patient outcomes, identifying populations risk, developing registers and central databases, and analysis of the effectiveness of processes (such as file management).

Current Status in Healthcare Industry

The term electronic health record is an umbrella term encompassing both electronic medical records (EMRs), used and maintained by health care providers, and personal health records (PHRs) maintained by consumers (Walker, 2005).

The electronic medical record incorporates Information Technology and Communication in the core of the health activity. This results in integrated clinical information between a patient and a health care professional. The electronic medical record is the unified data regarding the patient and his care and is filed electronically (Patel, 2012). EHR provides clinicians to keep records of diseases, manage health data etc. The electronic medical record is intended to improve health care, introducing technology to medical science, allowing to identify weaknesses and propose strategies that favor the optimization of healthcare services (Patel, 2012). Following are the functions of Electronic Health Record (Patel, 2012):

Create a comprehensive system for identifying all available information, to patients within the health institution.

Make available all patient information, collected by the medical center. This implies harmonization of data, minimum data ...