Advantages & Disadvantages of Emr

Electronic Medical Records, or EMR, has become a hot topic in recent years as the use of the Internet has expanded into more areas of our life and the need to reduce health-care costs has increased. EMR is an electronic information sharing system over the Internet that is for both doctors and patients. Doctors can update their data, research, or prescriptions into this web-based system and the patient, as well as any other doctor this patient may have, can access them from anywhere in the world. While there are many advantages to having electronic medical records, there are also disadvantages which should be kept in mind before moving to this type of system.

One Location For Everything

• Accessing all of your medical information at the same time can be extremely helpful. The medical field is becoming more and more specialized. Gone are the days where you can go to the same doctor for all of your medical problems. Because of this, some people may see multiple doctors at the same time for different issues. An EMR system enables each doctor to see the diagnosis and treatment plans of all the other doctors. This can help prevent over-medication or treatments that conflict with each other. Also, it does not rely on the patient, who may not be trained in the medical field, to relay all of their medical information to each health care practitioner.

Better Diagnosis

• Diagnosing treatments or conditions can be very difficult without all the information. By enabling health care practitioners to see all of the symptoms a patient may posses that have been identified by all of the patient's doctors gives them a greater chance to correctly diagnose a disease. Also, there is no need for duplicate tests by different doctors if they all have access to all of a patient's test results. Faster diagnosis can lead to a quicker cure and possibly save lives.

Cost

• Reducing cost has become a major issue for everyone: governments, big and small businesses, health care providers, and patients. An EMR system can reduce the administrative costs of maintaining medical records, but this has to be weighed against a very significant introduction cost. Software, training, and imputing current information all are major costs associated with introducing an EMR system.

Security

• Storing personal information online creates a significant security concern. Identity theft is becoming very common as more private information is stored on computers. Hackers continue to create new ways to break into computer systems and steal information. Making sure personal medical records remain private and secure is becoming more and more challenging.

Format

• Accessing medical information by multiple medical practitioners from multiple sites can be a real challenge if they don't all use the same system. Similar to one person using a Windows computer and another using an Apple, not all EMR systems are the same and they won't "talk" with each other. There are multiple EMR systems available which creates significant problems when trying to communicate with one another.

Electronic Tests

• Diagnosing medical conditions is done very often through the use of electronic machines. X-rays, MRIs, Cat-scans, and many other diagnostic tools all create an electronic image or information. An EMR system is the perfect tool to store all of this information in one place.