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Friday, March 30, 2012

Electronic Healthcare Records Are Evolving

By Belle Florentine


There are several facets to electronic health records (EHR) that can be seen across the board as evolving just how medicine is practiced at this time. To begin with the EHR in the tiniest sense is a medical record that an person can control. For example it would be the official transcript so to speak on your health history.

In a broader sense, electronic health records (EHR) can then be thought of as being controlled by a specific institution, billing provider, clinic, or physicians office. In this sense your history can be simply shared across other medical facilities. And taken this step a stride further you have the EMR or electronic medical record that is comprised of by hospitals and ambulatory services.

These amazing benefits impact both the individual and the world of medicine collectively. With the sharing of data it can in one sense avoid the replication or overlapping of dangerous prescriptions. However the broader sense can be gathered and change the healthcare industry depending on systematic review and research in the industry.

The main advantages of the EHR system also could result in an overall decrease in the cost of running the health care industry. Such staggering numbers as close to $2 trillion per year are assigned to both the National Health Accounts and Medicare alone. The forecasts are that a standardized electronic processing of the data could save $23 billion to those accounts and much more than $31 billion to the private payers.

Of course the EHR programs provide their fair share of down sides also. Any program with this magnitude has its own variables that can not be recognized until the system is in effect. As the cost savings are forecasts, the costs to get the system implemented can be incredible.

As the long term benefits are substantial, the time and money spent implementing a new program aren't convincing a few of the larger organizations completely down to the individual physicians that now is the time to modify the system. Again, this renovation affects both the individual and the big businesses depending on the healthcare industry.

Despite time or money and the benefits and drawbacks an EHR technique would suggest, there exists a bigger question when it comes to ethics of the program. As no automated program is without any consumer error there's a chance of report error. Yet again, along the bigger scope there's a chance of the information getting into the wrong hands or technological complications shutting down the medical reporting programs.

With problems of this magnitude and human being health issues on the line, the electronic health records face permanent culpability for blunders. Legal fees along with already extremely high errors and omissions insurance for individual doctors may be more than one organizations can manage in developing the system.




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