How Does Electronic Health Records Improve Patient Care?

How do electronic health records improve patient care? Click here and find out how and why electronic health records and online billing is used.

AboutÂ 80.5 percentÂ of hospitals use a basic system for electronic health records. Are medical care facilities using these systems to get all the benefits? There are ways to get the most out of your electronic records.

Electronic health records & online billing information is becoming more used & popular. How do electronic health records improve patient care? Click here and find out.

Improve Care Coordination

One of the biggest benefits of electronic health records is being able to share patient records with other physicians. You can also engage patients in their healthcare. You canÂ sendÂ electronic health information, education materials, and visit summaries to your patients.

EnhanceÂ PatientÂ Communication

It’s important to have effective communication when treating and diagnosing patients. Electronic files and portals let patients review their records and doctors’ notes.

Patients can view this information andÂ think ofÂ follow up questions. They can also review test results to make sure they understand the results.

This also lets patients view and check for any errors to make their records more accurate. This also helps patients be more active in their health ventures. You can workÂ in tandem with your patients to improve their quality of care.

ManageÂ Diseases

Using electronic records technology lets you be proactive with your patients’ care. You can identify patients that have not completed important screenings. You can then contact patients to schedule preventative testing.

These screenings can indicate early signs of possible developing conditions like kidney disease, cancer, glaucoma, and pancreatitis.Â You can also provide educational information on why these screenings are important.

Enable Research

Having electronic records allows you to leverage analytic features to help research. You can:

Generate population groups
Review active conditions
Track drug trial participation
Review active conditions

You can then evaluate treatment plans by reviewing similarities and differences. This lets doctors make better clinical decisions.

They can also share information with peers and colleagues. This lets doctors share advice and experiences and increase the quality of care for all patients.

Ways to Review All Aspects of Health

Some patients have more complex medical histories and multiple conditions. These patients can have large records that could be difficult to sort.

Digital health records help physicians view these comprehensive files to identify various aspects of the patient’s health.Â These records include family histories, lifestyle risk factors, medications, past surgeries, and mental health status.

More Versatile

Paper records could be hard to read depending on the physician’s handwriting â€” think of written prescriptions. A doctor can not share these records as easily and scanning or faxing these documents may make these documents even more illegible.

Other problems with paper records include storage, transporting, easy to destroy, and difficult to analyze. Electronic documents are much more versatile because you don’t have to do anything of these things. You don’t have to worry about storing them, moving them, or misplacing them.

Anyone can read these records. You can also find these records quicker and review any trends.

You can also link all patient information together including insurance, billing, and other financial information.Â Click hereÂ for more information on insurance and billing and the various protocols to tie with your system.

More Secure

Electronic documents are much more secure. You can make sure an unauthorized person does not access them without your knowledge. You also don’t have to worry about an employee accidentally leaving records out or filing them in the wrong location.

When a paper record is out, anyone can see it, make a copy, or even scan it to send to another party. Electronic records protect this information with variousÂ encryption methodsÂ to keep critical patient information away from others.

You have to comply with privacy regulations and HIPAA. Electronic health records make it easier to keep confidentiality than paper records.

Paper records can also be altered easier. Someone can remove papers or forget to include something in the file.

To access electronic health records, your system has encryption and strong protection with logins and passwords. It makes it more difficult for someone to access this information and a patient’s chart.

Access Audit Trails

Electronic health records allow you to do audit trails. Paper records make it much more difficult to do an audit trail and to access information as needed.

You can see who has accessed a patient’s records. You can also see if this access was authorized. You know if someone is seeing something they shouldn’t, which is virtually impossible with paper documents.

Data Backup After Disasters

Not only are your patient’s records much more secure and confidential, but you can also make sure this data is still available after a disaster. For example, there is no guarantee that paper records will still be available after a disaster like theft, fire, or storm.

Your data is available when you need it, and you can be confident that it backed up. Your practice won’t skip a beat when you need to get patient information, and you won’t have to sort through all your paper copies to make sure you have what you need. You can secure your patients’ data and offer peace of mind that you can continue to help them no matter what.

Having electronic health records gives you more security of your patients’ critical data. You can help reduce errors and efficiency to stay more profitable and reliable.