The Best Way to Track Patient Information

Patient information is an important part of treating, diagnosing, and managing patients. Keeping track of a patient's history, treatments, medications, and allergies can be difficult when multiple health care providers care for a patient. The best way to keep track of patient information is by storing it in a centralized location that is available to all necessary health care providers, making treating patients simpler and helping to eliminate errors.

Utilizing patient information tracking programs

• Computer programs that allow health care providers to store and track patient information help health care providers to keep track of all types of patient information including demographics, billing and insurance information, medical history, medications, allergies, and treatments provided. These programs allow health care providers to input information about each patient into one file which is available to all those who have access to the program. A case study on Stamford Hospital, performed by Encentuate, shows how and why using patient tracking software can benefit both patients and health care providers while complying with security policies.

  Prior to the development of patient information tracking programs, each individual was responsible for producing their information each and every time he was seen by a health care professional. In situations when the patient was unable to communicate, her information was unattainable.

Tracking patient information from multiple locations

• Patient information can be retrieved at both a doctor's office and hospital, as well as other locations such as a therapy center or nursing home, when using tracking programs. Many programs also allow for multiple locations to view the patient's information file at one time.

  A patient information tracking system that allows for multiple viewing locations gives all health care providers involved in a case access to all information regarding the patient by simply pulling up his patient file using the program.

Availabiltiy of patient information

• A patient's personal information is confidential and can only be shared among health care providers who have both access to the system and the password that allows them to pull up patient files. Various passwords can be set with each allowing access to certain parts of the patient's file.

  For example, a physician that needs complete access to the patient's file will have one password set for allowing all information in the file to seen. A billing specialist will have a password (which is different from the password used by the physician) which will give her access to only the information needed for billing purposes.

  Each section of information is accessible with certain passwords allowing only the necessary information to be shared with each individual who accesses the patient file.