What Exactly is EMR and EHR?
EMR (Electronic Medical Records) and EHR (Electronic Health Records) are paperless digital and computerized systems for maintaining patient data. EMR was made to reduce documentation errors and increase efficiency.
All health care providers are required to begin building an EMR and EHR systems following HIPAA Compliance. HIPAA is an act that sets the standard for protecting sensitive patient data. Before the signing of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act in 2009, it was understood industry-wide that HIPAA was not strictly enforced. Under HITECH, healthcare providers could be penalized for “willful neglect” if they failed to demonstrate reasonable compliance with the Act. The penalties could be as high as $250,000 with fines for uncorrected violations costing up to $1.5 million.
Any company that deals with protected health information must ensure that all the required physical, network, and process security measures are in place and followed. Once the health care providers globally are set up with EMR and EHR systems, all of the records will be synced to a central location where all health care providers can access patient information.
List of records saved under EMR and EHR:
- Patient’s notes from previous doctor visits
- All images of scans and x-rays the patient has had
- List of medicines they have taken
- Information on allergies the patient may have
- Other critical patient data
What an EMR system enables medical service providers to do is take that medical record that you’ve been historically documenting on paper, or in other hand-written form, and document it one time in an electronic form. You are then empowering things like security at a much higher level. In a paper system, if someone pulls a chart and reviews it, you may not know what they did or what information they’ve gleaned from those pages. With an Electronic Medical Record system, you know who accessed what and when, and there’s a complete audit trail. Only one person can have a physical chart at a time, thereby slowing service to the patient, increasing the risk of error, and increasing costs for the hospital. Capturing the information once and making it accessible by many is probably one of the most profound benefits of an EMR system.
CATS Technology will work with you to help design and manage a fully integrated EHR and EMR system that will allow you to be in compliance as well as achieve your best work for improving patient care. To minimize the amount of downtime experienced by your practice, CATS Technology offers proactive monitoring services focused around keeping your systems running smoothly and efficiently.
