Electronic Health Records – Advantages For The Medical Community

Technology has changed pretty much everything that we know about the world around us. It has transformed information as the most powerful resource of all. Whether it be in education or related to the corporate world, whoever holds the right data and facts rules the world. This one adage has become part and parcel of everyday life today.

In these times, you can pretty much assume that technology would have made its way into the healthcare industry as well. And this is not just for the surgical and treatment administration functions. Maintenance of medical records was once a hassle for doctors and healthcare professionals. But, you will also appreciate that without proper medical history and data, doctors will find it quite difficult to administer safe and effective treatments. This fact prompted healthcare institutions to maintain files upon files of patient history and a full fledged back office team whose task was keeping these records up to date. Imagine the sheer volume of data stored in paper format and the hassle it would be to actually access or share it.

But the advent of IT technology in this sector revolutionised things completely, bringing convenience, speed and accuracy to a system that was well on its way towards becoming obsolete. The development of electronic health records system or EHR took all the problems out of the function of maintaining patient histories and brought about a change that was accepted around the world with open hands.

There were many advantages offered by the EHR system to the healthcare industry. Let us look at some of them.

• Doctors are famous for their legendary illegible handwriting which made these records typically useless as people weren’t able to understand what was written. But EHR made better documentation possible and turned this problem into a thing of the past.
• Although initially EHR systems would seem like expenditure but in the long run you will be enjoying huge savings that would otherwise be money spend as overheads for maintaining a record keeping department. As information is readily available, and easily and quickly referred to before proceeding with the best treatment option, resources will be saved as the patient's sick period is reduced.
• Data stored in paper format is much more prone to damage and destruction due to the elements that data stored in digital format which can be backed up as many times as you want. Safety and better storage are some obvious advantages of the electronic health record system.
• Data in the electronic format is much more accessible and manageable that paper based records. Sharing of medical records, searching for specific problems and even data extraction become much easier in the electronic format.
• Accuracy is the most important advantage of the EHR system. EHR makes it easy to keep accurate records of who has access to patient's information, when it was accessed and by whom.

Visit PracticeStudio.net to know more about EHR systems.

About The Author

Allison Chase is an expert in electronic medical records systems who also likes to write many interesting articles and blogs on the topic, educating people about this technology and talking extensively about the benefits of this service. She recommends PracticeStudio.net as the most trustworthy name in this business.