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Most patients imagine huge color coded shelves with a host of labeled manilla files when they think of doctors records. For the most part, they’d be right. However, there’s an initiative coming down the line that’s really gathering steam. Many medical institutions are switching to electronic health records. The basic idea behind the program is that rather than having paper records which are difficult to transfer, update, and cross reference, one has an electronic record that can be easily accessed and shared between medical institutions.
His provides numerous benefits both monetary and in patient care. The transfer to an electronic system saves a great deal of money in paper, support costs, and labor hours necessary to keep the records updated. However, there are serious costs to setting up the system initially, training employees, and keeping the system updated. Nevertheless, the government has been known to offer incentives to institutions who move towards these systems and that can help reduce the overall costs.
The benefits for patient care are numerous and obvious. The regular healthcare provider and any necessary specialists can easily share information between each other through a unified patient profile. This can also reduce the risk of complications from allergies or medicine interactions because the shared profile can inform each healthcare provider can see any current treatments and proscription history.
In addition, many of these system are linked to databases of the most advance clinical research. This provides the doctor with a whole host of treatment options he might not otherwise consider. In addition, it can raise warnings about information from other records who have had a similar situation and any possible failure or harms that treatment might have experienced.
Although it might not be as exciting as the newest laser surgery technology, advances in medical records will help bring significant improvement to patients care and help reduce the difficulties in treatment.
