Custom EHR & EMR Software Development Solutions

An electronic medical record (EMR) system is a digital version of a patient’s healthcare chart. It contains all patients’ medical data to enable doctors to make informed treatment decisions. The data stored in an EMR solution could include demographic information, allergies, immunization records, previous surgeries, medication history, previous conditions, diagnoses, and so on. An EMR software solution allows medical professionals to create, store, view, and manage this healthcare chart.  

An electronic health record (EHR) system is a digital version of a patient’s paper-based chart. They are patient records that quickly make important medical information available to clinicians and authorized users. An EHR solution contains the entire health history of patients and provides a broad perspective of a patient’s care.  

Types of EMR systems are as follows –   

      1. Software  

This is the conventional type of commercial software where it is installed on-premises at a clinic or a hospital. The software is likely installed on the servers and shared amongst all providers if it is a large hospital with multiple departments. This type generally has high upfront purchase, installation, and update costs.  

      2. Application Services  

In this type, the application resides on the vendor’s servers instead of the hospital’s. Although it reduces the initial costs of implementation, operating it tends to rise over time. Although it may seem similar to cloud-based software, it is a private cloud with internet access but without network benefits or the ability to share.  

      3. Software as a Service (SaaS)  

In this model, the software is hosted from the cloud and all the relevant IT infrastructure. All the maintenance and updating are done by the service provider, along with handling storage. All users of organizations that subscribe to this access a single instance of the software securely through the web. It incurs lower initial costs and is easier to scale up or down based on the requirement.  

      4. Cloud Services  

Although vastly similar to the previous SaaS model, this offers extended benefits of various operational services such as clinical data analytics, seamless sharing with other entities in the cloud network, business intelligence, and so forth.  

Although the terms EMR and EHR tend to be used interchangeably, there is a marked difference between the two. An EMR (Electronic Medical Record) is a digital version of a patient’s paper-based charts containing the patient’s medical history in one organization. That could be a single clinic, a practice, or a hospital. The patient’s health data doesn’t easily travel out of the organization. EMRs sometimes have to be printed out to be sent over to other specialists or caregivers outside the organization.  

On the other hand, an EHR (Electronic Health Record) can go beyond the confines of the organization that collects and compiles patients’ health data. They are designed to share the data with other providers outside the organization, in addition to testing labs and other diagnostic centers. In other words, an EHR can share clinical data with all medical professionals involved in the patient’s care across multiple organizations. EHRs facilitate better coordination and collaboration of care and are different from EMRs.

EHR is the digital version of a patient’s healthcare chart. It contains all the medical data on the patient. The biggest advantage of EHR is that it provides complete and up-to-date information about a patient’s health at the point of care. Doctors anywhere can access a person’s medical history and make informed decisions regarding treatments. Moreover, EHRs enable providers to share medical data with other providers in addition to diagnostic centers. This means that doctors will have ready access to patients’ data before starting treatments, preventing or minimizing the chances of misdiagnosis or medication errors.  

In addition to the clinical aspects, simplified sharing of patients’ data also facilitates greater efficiency in medical coding and billing activities. To sum up, EHRs reduce paperwork, prevent redundancy in clinical activities, improve compliance, reduce costs, and generally lead to better outcomes for all stakeholders.  

• Complete, up-to-date medical data on patients at the point of care  
• Sharing the clinical information with other providers for improved collaboration  
• Accurate diagnoses and fewer medical errors due to the latest patient health information  
• Reduction in cost of care due to a reduction in redundant tests, paperwork, and administrative burdens  
• Improved management of chronic diseases through better care coordination  

Cost  

The whole process of implementing an EHR requires a significant investment upfront. The hardware, software, network components, IT infrastructure, software subscription, support, and updates require sizeable capital.  

Staff Training  

Training the staff to use an EHR is time-consuming and impacts the day-to-day clinical and administrative operations at a hospital. The Larger the medical organization, the more problems with training the staff. Since training the staff would take a few weeks, it would mean time away from patient care and other workflows.  

Interoperability  

Interoperability is the ability of an EHR to share data with other medical applications for clinical and other operations. But integrating an EHR with other healthcare software poses its barriers. These include differing versions, data formats, programming languages, and protocols for developing each application. Integrating them all seamlessly for easy exchange of data is a daunting task.  

Health Data Portability  

EHRs enable physicians to share data with other physicians and specialists and collaborate on care. Not only is this better in terms of patient outcomes, but it is also highly beneficial for managing diseases. With an EHR, a new physician at a different location would get more accurate medical data, making treatments prone to errors. EHR minimizes the chances of diagnostic and clinical errors with complete, up-to-date information on patients.  

Streamlines Care Workflows  

Healthcare involves consultations, admission, tests, scans, diagnosis, and post-treatment care. An EHR platform provides caregivers with complete patient data throughout all the stages of healthcare. This streamlines all the workflows in care, eventually improving patient outcomes.  

Patient Engagement  

EHRs enable patient portals to be integrated with them, allowing patients to view their medical information from anywhere. This goes a long way in educating patients about their conditions and empowers them to be more involved in their care. Good patient engagement has been shown to improve both patient outcomes as well as the experience for the patients.  

Potential For Preventive Care  

Since EHRs provide a consolidated view of patients’ clinical information, it paves the way for analytics to highlight who might be at higher risk of diseases. This enables physicians to take a preventive approach when diseases might be in their early stages and less severe. Such a preventive approach can revolutionize the healthcare industry.  

EMRs are integrated with telehealth applications through specially designed APIs (Application Programming Interfaces). An API is a way for two or more software programs to communicate, like a software interface. An EMR integrated with a telehealth platform through relevant APIs enables the two applications to exchange data. This means that a physician who uses a telehealth platform to deliver care services remotely can access patients’ health data and treat patients better. During a virtual consultation, the provider can view the patient’s health data, test results, previous medications, allergies, immunizations, etc., and have an informed opinion of the patient’s medical situation. This provides a major advantage when an EMR is integrated with a telehealth application.