Electronic Medical Records: A Layman’s guide

Everyone has become busier than ever before.out.
Modern engineered and scientific advancementsElectronic medical records are the medical records
along with the internet have changed the life a lot.in electronic formats. These electronic medical
Be it the ease of transportation or thereports may contain patient’s personal detail,
communication, everything has reached a level ofpharmacy orders, radiology results, laboratory
simplification or near simplification. With theseresults, discharge/transfer orders, and any other
advancements modern life style also has acquireddata from the supportive services. Technically it is
the ease of simplified technologies and the needa very sound way of keeping and manipulating
of every business. Hence, world has becomemedical records. Using electronic medical records
busier than ever before. With the introduction ofthe records of a patient can easily be stored,
these advancements the work load in everyread, studied and manipulated by the concerned
sector has also increased to a very potent level.doctor or the surgeon with ease of mobility. Ease
The physiotherapist who could have a little restof mobility means that these electronic medical
during the library hours now have to work onrecords can be retrieved and manipulated from
those extra hours due to the use of onlineanywhere by the concerned person/doctor with a
libraries and other resource centers. With suchhandheld PDA or a laptop connected to the LAN
hefty increases in work load the stress level alsoof the record keeping stand – alone health
has gone up. From an expert surgeon to ainformation system. The monitoring and the
student everybody has the stress. Even aninterpretation of records and protection from
organization as a whole faces this type of stress.adverse events are sometime done automatically
When it comes to the medical and health careby some sophisticated electronic medical records
sector the most stressful job is keeping thesoftware. From the personal detail of the patient
records of patients with different problemsto the discharge order of the patient everything
accordingly and systematically. Earlier recordcan be feed and done accordingly with the help of
keepings of the patients were done manually inelectronic medical records. The introduction of
journals or record books. These record books inEMR or electronic medical reports into the system
turn took the shape of files and eventually heapsis not a very old one. Being a new concept in the
of files. And if a patient comes for treatmentfield of medical records, the use of EMR is not
again after a long period of a year or two, findingvery wide spread one. Even in US by 2005, only
his records from those heaps of files was not an25% of the office based doctors and physicians
easy task for those who were involved in recorduse either fully or partially the electronic medical
keeping. In such a situation most of the patientsrecords technology. And out of this 25% only
required to register themselves again or required70% uses the complete EMR system.
to give their details to the record keeper onceSo, if your concerned doctor or the physician is
again. Also in such a case where previous record,already using electronic medical records
scans, x-rays were mandatory, due to the lacktechnology into his practice, then it’s OK.
of proper record keeping the patient and theOtherwise you have to ask for the same next
doctor who treats him faces problems. But withtime when you visit your physician in order to
the introduction of electronic medical recordssave your precious time in near future.
technology, this type of problem has been sorted