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An EMR or an Electronic Medical Record is a technology introduced to further improve today’s medical practices as well as to negate many of the faults caused by the use of paper-based records. However, although EMR is a technology which had recently proliferated across different healthcare institutions, the use of electronic records were already a working improvement back in the 1990s. History of Electronic Records According to historians, the goal to improve medical practices through the advancements of technologies has been around since the fifth century B.C. in which Hippocrates aim to create a modern medical record which can accurately reflect the course of disease and indicate the probable cause of disease. These goals are still appropriate in today’s medical practices. However, the new medical record software, such as EMR or electronic medical records, also included additional functionalities such as faster storage, retrieval, and modification of patient’s records, clinical alerts, billing, and other useful functions. It was in the 1960s that many universities around the US started work on how to improve the use of medical records through developing different software which can accommodate the growing trends of medical practice. However, it was only in the 1990s what the first EMR and EHR (Electronic Health Record) were introduced for market use by many companies all over the world. Difference of EMR and EHR EMR and EHR are not different software, although there are differences within its functionalities. The EMR can be defined as the legal patient record created in hospitals and ambulatory environments that is the data source for the EHR. Benefits of EMR There are several benefits that different healthcare providers and institutions can attain with the use of EMR. One is its cost efficiency. Paper-based records would usually require a secured storage facility to store all their patient’s records for 7 years before it can be discarded. EMR, on the other hand, doesn’t need any storage facilities. What it would only require is the use of a digital storage, such as a Hard Disk Drive which can be stored with the premises of a hospital or any other healthcare institution. The use of an EMR had also improve medical practices by introducing modularized EMR software which aims to further improve a specific branch of medicine, such as a pediatric emr, OB/GYN EMR, cargiology EMR, and many more. Another major factor that made EMR and EHR important is because it avoids the usual adverse effects of using paper-based records, such as with poor legibility, which can contribute to medical errors. This is by the digitization of forms, such as a pediatric EMR, that facilitates the collection of data for epidemiology and clinical studies.
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pediatric EMR, electronic medical records,
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