Monday, April 30, 2012

Find Out The Many Ways Your Practice Can Benefit From EHR

By Danielle M. Saady


EHR, also known as electronic health record, is a new system that supports comprehensiveness, accuracy and timeliness of patient information. Apart from the common clinical data collected by a certain practice, the electronic health record also contains a wider perspective of everything associated with patient care. Instead, electronic health record also includes information from everyone who are part of the team designated to care for the patient, such as specialists or laboratory technicians. Data contained in electronic health record can be readily created, administered and accessed by healthcare staff from more than one organization.

There are several benefits that can be drawn from maintaining an EHR. Patients, for example, can open their medical records expediently, regardless of a change in provider or location. Members of the team involved in giving care to a patient can readily get the information they need or share the information they have securely through this system. As medical providers from different modalities work in partnership, effective communication is established, which consequently translates to better patient care.

With a well-established EHR, members of a medical team have access to the most recent, complete and precise information about the patient. Coordination, when it comes to information, promotes coordination in patient treatment and care as well. Importance of having access to information is best exemplified on emergency instances in which the attending physician can simply refer the electronic health record to get information about a patient's medicine allergy, and this is particularly useful especially when the patient is unconscious. This system is beneficial to a patient as well because he can view his own records and track his health progress. From the comforts of his own home, he can view his medical records and look at the findings in his laboratory tests. By seeing how his lifestyle changes or his medications are affecting his test results, he can be motivated to keep doing the things that is helping his health and medical condition.

Another benefit of this system is that it prevents unnecessary tests. A healthcare provider does not have to schedule the same tests simply because he can simply look at the records and get the information from there. Electronic health record helps promote smooth transition from one health care provider to another or from one care environment to another.

Through Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act or HITECH Act, health care providers passing eligibility requirements can meet the criteria for incentive payments by Medicare and Medicaid when they adopt a qualified technology. There are regulations set and in order for the providers to be eligible for incentives, they have to achieve the EHR meaningful use objectives.




About the Author:



0 comments:

Post a Comment