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Electronic Medical Record or EMR is a popular technology introduced to make it easier for healthcare providers to store, retrieve, and modify their patients’ records compared to the use of paper-based records. However, there are other reasons why this technology was developed other than just for easier storage and retrieval of health records. Other Benefits of EMR In addition to its typical capability of allowing healthcare professionals, such as doctors and nurses, to store, retrieve, and modify their patients’ records, the EMR was developed for other reasons, such as for cost-cutting. Cost-Cutting According to healthcare professionals, paper-based records are usually stored for 7 years, which is the US standard for storing medical records. Although smaller healthcare institutions or hospitals don’t usually need larger or additional storage spaces to store all their medical records, larger institutions usually require larger and numerous storage spaces to store all their medical records. This in turn leads to a lot of budget needed for storage facilities. EMR, on the other hand, don’t usually require such storage spaces. The costs of storage media, such as paper and film, per unit of information differ dramatically from that of electronic storage media. This is because an electronic medical records can be easily stored in a digital storage, such as a Hard Disk Drive, which is much cheaper compared to a physical storage space. Improved Medical Practices There are many EMRs in the market today that can offer additional services to its users, such as a decision support program. For example, a pediatric emr can offer additional information for a specific ailment/illness that a patient had experienced. This can be used by healthcare professionals on how to approach this with lesser to no risk. Another advantage is that EMR had completely eliminated the risk of medical errors due to poor legibility with the use of paper-based records. Electronic records help with the standardization of forms, terminology and abbreviations, and data input. Digitization of forms, such as a pediatric EMR, facilitates the collection of data for epidemiology and clinical studies. Mobility EMR systems have the advantage of being able to connect to many electronic medical record systems. This allows different healthcare institutions to easily and conveniently pass one patient’s record to the other, particularly in situations in which a patient must be transferred to another hospital.
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pediatric EMR, electronic medical records,
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