EMR vs EHR: Know What’s Best for Your Practice

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2014 required healthcare organizations to use electronic systems. But even now, physicians and healthcare practices are unsure what to choose between EMRs and EHRs.

Despite the similarities, you need to choose the right practice software and know what’s best for your practice.

What is an Electronic Health Record?

An Electronic Health Record, or EHR, integrates a patient’s medical records into digital files. EHR consists of up-to-date patient records that authorized users can access in digital versions. In addition, they include patient information on medical history, medications, immunization, allergies, treatment plans, and lab results. EHR enables physicians and care providers to make informed decisions about patients’ care.

Benefits of Electronic Health Records 

Providers and patients benefit from on-demand access to patients’ electronic health records. Below are the essential benefits of Electronic Health Records for your practice:

1. EHR Makes Information Available in an Emergency: With the EHR, doctors can access patient information immediately, such as allergies and complete medical histories.

2. EHR Offers Synchronized Availability: In most cases, a patient is under the care of multiple providers who track their medical history and other relevant patient data. If doctors from different clinics or places collaborate on a patient’s care, sharing information can be critical in choosing the appropriate course of treatment.

3. Data Transfer Is Quick and Secure in EHR: Healthcare providers and practitioners can securely and quickly transfer data with EHR systems. Data can be shared not just among doctors or clinics but also between departments – especially in situations where time in the medical field is crucial.

4. Easy Reporting With EHR: With a simple click, you can generate reports for all the patients who have not paid their bills after a second notice. Using the EHR application, your staff can now customize templates.

5. Better Patient Care With EHR: Patient care must always be the number one priority. With EHRs, physicians and other healthcare providers have full access to a patient’s comprehensive medical records. Doctors can provide accurate diagnoses, recommend effective treatment, and follow up. All of these should be based on patient data on their past injuries, lab results, and ongoing health issues.

What is an Electronic Medical Record or EMR?

EMRs are electronic versions of paper charts that contain the same information as paper charts, such as medical history, diagnoses, medications, immunization records, and allergies. As part of the benefits of an EMR, doctors can keep track of data over time and identify which patients require follow-up care. EMRs give you a better insight into how your practice is performing and how well you’re treating patients.

Although EMRs are helpful within a practice, they can’t easily travel outside. It might even be necessary to print out and send a patient’s medical record to another provider.

Benefits of EMR

Healthcare practices use EMRs to keep up with the 21st century and keep abreast of ongoing changes in health care. Here are the great benefits of EMR for your practice:

1.EMRs Lab Interface Is a Fast Tracker: Lab reports take time to arrive. For this reason, employees must print reports and then place them in a location where doctors can review them. An interface between external systems and EMR software will reduce the return time on these reports. Moreover, physicians can check the report in their respective charts, which lowers employee workloads.

2. EMRs Also Improve Patient Care: You can provide the best care for patients when you have instant access to patient information. These include lab results, diagnostic imaging, medication history, or trends in a readable format at the point of care. 

3. EMRs Enhance Productivity: Seamlessly billing for services reduces the burden of manual labor for you and your staff. You can quickly save time and money by finding essential patient details with comprehensive search functionality.

4. EMR Optimizes Coding and Improves Compliance: The EMR system keeps up with Medicare, the government, and insurance companies’ changes in policies. With a proper coding system, you can speed up the reimbursement process, give doctors more time to see their patients, and prevent duplicate procedures.

5. EMR Offers Financial Benefits: Using EMR is an effective way to lower costs at your practice. According to a study published in The American Journal of Medicine, EMR systems can provide a positive return on your investment. With the aid of EMRs, drug expenditures are lesser, more accurate submission of billing services, better service in radiologic diagnostics, and fewer billing errors.

EMR vs. EHR

When we compare the terms “medical” and “health,” it’s easy to figure out the difference between EMR and EHR. EMRs provide a broader view of the patient’s medical history, while EHRs give a more comprehensive evaluation of the patient’s health.

Other differences between EMRs and EHRs include:

• An EHR enables a patient’s medical records to transfer between specialists, labs, imaging facilities, emergency rooms, pharmacies, etc.
• Providers use EMRs primarily for diagnosing and treating patients.
• In an EHR, patient information is exclusive for sharing only among authorized providers and staff from different organizations.
• EMRs are not shareable outside of the practice.

What Similarities Do Both of These Tools Have?

Providers can streamline tasks while increasing medical practice efficiency with EMR and EHR systems. Although these products have different functions, both aim to improve patient and provider satisfaction.

Conclusion

It’s easier to choose EMR vs. EHR if you know better of their differences. Both offer several benefits to medical practices as well. So, which of the two can function well for your practice? That’s up for you to decide!

Providing you with the Best

Choose only the best for your healthcare practice. 

At 1st Providers Choice, we understand the need and expectations of our clients for a higher level of performance for billing software and EMR software. That’s why we only offer the top tailored medical billing system and EHR with features that will allow your healthcare practice to operate at its optimum potential, save time, and double your revenue.

You can call us at (480) 782-1116 for immediate assistance, or you can schedule a free demo with our experts TODAY.