Switch to EHR for better Patient Outcomes!

May 28, 2021

When healthcare providers have access to comprehensive and reliable information, patients experience arguably better medical care. Electronic health records (EHR) strengthen the capacity to diagnose diseases and lessen—even anticipate—medical errors, leading to considerably better patient outcomes.

What is an EHR?

EHR is a digitized version of a patient’s paper chart. They are real-time, patient-centered records created and managed by authorized providers. They are constituted in a digital format capable of being distributed with other providers across more than one healthcare institution. One can effortlessly partake information with other healthcare organizations – such as laboratories, specialists, medical imaging facilities, pharmacies, emergency facilities, etc.

With EHRs, providers have secure access to a patient’s complete health information, and this comprehensive picture can help providers diagnose a patient’s problems sooner. Let us look at a few of the ways EHR adoption can make a significant impact on patient care.

Helping Improve Care Coordination

EHRs eliminate many of the obstacles physicians encounter, especially communication and decision-making issues. The benefits are supplemented when interoperability is engineered, allowing for the coherent sharing of data across providers and organizations.

With a robust API (Application Programming Interface) solution, you can transfer healthcare information across any EHR platform. This process saves providers and staff valuable time on manual tasks – all without sacrificing patient security.

Improved Decision Making

When equipped with complete patient health information, providers can quickly arrive at diagnoses. While this is a crucial, circumventing mistakes is equally imperative, and EHRs can help providers do exactly  that. EHRs keep track of details like patient allergies and new medication prescriptions. In care teams, it is simpler to delegate responsibilities and regulate as a team if everyone has access to the same information in real-time. Clinical staff can do their jobs, and the physician can evaluate it with the patient whenever they see fit. EHRs increase productivity on almost every level, from dispensing records to improving decision-making.

Patients Connecting with their Care

EHRs enables patients to access  patient portals, mobile health apps, and medical websites, critical incentives that help get patients more involved in their care. EHR-enabled patient portals render patients access to healthcare data, such as vaccination history, lab and other diagnostic test events. Patients can log in to the patient portal for easy access to the information they need.

EHRs give the patient admittance to medical records and allow them to review treatment results in real-time but in a multi-layered and protected system. Empowering patients with access to their medical records put them in the decision-making process with the provider, giving them more control over their care.

Improving Portability and Sharing

Patients may have several doctors ranging from cardiologists to dermatologists, and every doctor a patient sees must have the same knowledge. Overlaps in patient care without EHRs indicate some of the patient providers have a fragmented view of the patient’s history, current diagnoses, and treatments.

EHRs provide a way for patients to administer their records with all their doctors and make sure their data is updated. They also ensure that every provider in the patient’s chain of care understands which medications they are taking and any other treatment plans they may be practicing. These are vital indicators while deciding the prognosis/evaluation of a patient under care.

Reducing Workloads

Proper training and design make the EHR fit into provider workflow, helping improve productivity and reducing the time spent on each patient. Tools that promote clinical decision-making overcome cognitive workloads as well. Many EHR platforms help to streamline processes such as scheduling follow-up appointments and expediting medication refills by conveying information to the patient’s pharmacy.

Analytics can modify to fit the needs of a patient, enabling providers and clinical staff a picture of a patient’s health without assessing the pre-existing data. This data of a patient’s health helps healthcare providers implement better care while decreasing the drain on time and cognitive functions.

Conclusion

Broad use of EHRs has brought forth the weaknesses of the modern generation of EHRs: their user interface, implementation difficulties, the time required to use them. Addressing these weaknesses and embracing new technologies, including voice use, natural language processing and data analytics systems, is essential for EHRs to realize their full potential. The goal is to combine integral components of EHR’s to transform the arena of health care and bring about its inevitable universal implementation.