Electronic Medical Records

Introduction

An electronic medical record (EMR) is a medical record in digital format. In health informatics an EMR is considered by some to be one of several types of EHR (electronic health records, but in general usage EMR and EHR are synonymous. True medication management involves more than just automated prescription writing and drug distribution. It involves the consolidation of patient medication data across all healthcare providers. Whenever the same patient health data is required by more than one provider it should be shared. Patient medication data is an important part of managed care, practice management and the patient record. In the future, Patient record data, including medication data, will be managed as a whole and made available to a wide range of users.

Comparison

Deciding whether to implement an electronic medical records (EMR) system is another critical purchasing decision for medical practices. EMR applications move patients' charts online: they store physicians' notes, x-rays, prescriptions, and any other information usually found in paper charts. This allows doctors to access patients' information remotely, makes searching and retrieving data easier, and improves office efficiency and accuracy (Noffsinger, 23-30).

Both MPM and EMR are major purchasing decisions costing many thousands of dollars. Because of the magnitude and expense, it is usually advisable to purchase and install one at a time. However, to get the most out of both systems, it is important that they work well together (Raschhke, 1317-1320).

The industry-standard Health Level 7 (HL7) protocol allows health care applications to share data with each other, so make sure both your EMR and MPM software use it. For truly seamless integration, you should not have to export batches of data from one and import them into the other - they should communicate in real time. Health Level 7 (HL7) is the organization responsible for designing, ...