Do EMR’s help in Better Medical Care ?

You are happy with your emr. It is easy to locate notes, enter and edit patient information and not wait for the trolley to come trundling along. But has it made your patients lives better ?

No matter how you slice it, you cannot get one single, convincing answer. As an increasing number of practices are joining the emr fray, this question and the answer to it, is more important than ever.

Comprehensive Progress notes, An Ancient Relic ?

Yes, documenting patient records has never been so easy. Or, so impersonal either. Straight out of a can templates have taken the place of long and informative patient progress notes. A physician going through the progress note in his emr is more likely to encounter highly edited and simplified information, which may not give him a clear picture of his patient’s progress.

Sigh, The Doctor is too busy…

A common complaint heard in the waiting room of doc’s offices is that patients are slowly becoming the least powerful factor in the equation. With cuts in reimbursement and constant changes in the healthcare landscape, it is a tough world to live in for physicians. And learning the ropes of a new system isn’t a walk in the park either. And in this entire din it is the voice of the patient that sadly goes unheard.

EMR’s do lead to Higher Quality of Care.

A recent study published in the The Journal of General Internal Medicine states that ehr use had led to significantly higher quality of care. It is one of the first extensive researches conducted on the usefulness of an emr in a clinical setting. And going by its results, despite its flaws electronic medical records billing services are here to stay. Physicians, who learn the ropes quickly enough and can work around the limitations of the system, can realize the endless possibilities it offers. Better patient care and easy access to records at all times, are just a few of them.