Old School Method
Doctor’s typically write’s all the information physically either in a set of papers or a book or diary. Information can be easily captured quickly with a stroke of a pen.
- Patients Name, Details & Address
- Present & Past Ailments
- Current Complaints
- Medical History.
- Prescriptions & Medications etc.
This is a very quick and easy way to handle all the information with respect to patients, however as the practice grows it becomes very difficult to handle all the information lying in different papers and folders, Also physical storage of data has its own shortcomings, as information cannot be pulled out easily and collectively. It becomes very difficult to have a consolidated view of all the information that has been collected, a patient visited recently may not visit the same clinic for another year or two. Similarly, a patient just visited might have come to the clinic 2 years back.
Software Systems & Solutions
Collection, retrieval and utilizing the patient’s information in a quick and meaningful manner becomes very difficult. This is where the software’s specifically developed for the healthcare industry for practising doctors & hospitals come into the picture. As the software world is known for jargon, the systems developed to handle all the above-mentioned issues is known as EHR & EMR
Both Electronic Health Records (EHR) and Electronic Medical Records (EMR) are used interchangeably, however, there is a subtle difference between them. They both have similar functionality of capturing all the data/information pertaining to the patient and enabling doctors to
- Save & Retrieve Patients information
- Store Medical Records & Past history
- Ailments & Complaints
- Remedies & Prescriptions
- Medications
- Pathology, X-Ray & Other Reports etc…
Internet and online software as a service providers have done a very good job in automating all the clinical tasks. Information now can be pulled out in a meaningful way, enabling doctors to have a complete and consolidated view of all the past medical history keeping in view the current ailment/diseases of the patients. It also helps doctors detect early symptoms, clues or indication of any chronic disease that the patient may likely to suffer in the future, and helps in cautioning the patient and take corrective medication, diet & exercise to completely avoid or control the disease.
Difference EHR vs EMR
When software is used at a single clinic and not shared across all the doctors and hospitals, such a system is known as EMR, it is restricted to a single clinic or single doctor, however, if patient information is shared across all the hospitals and clinics and only a single copy of that patient exists in the system based on his Aaadhar No or PAN number then such a system is known as EHR.
EHRs are normally solutions provided by Government. Doctors are given access to add, retrieve and store information against a patient. Here in India, we do not have Electronic Health Records, however, there are many good EMR tools for medical doctors and practitioners, which can be available on subscription basis at a very nominal rate.