How EHRs Can Help You Take Control and Improve Your Health Care
As medicine continues to advance and people live longer, a larger segment of the population will be pushing the boundaries of our health system. Medical professionals are squeezed for time as they try to keep up with regulations and documentation. In order to ensure that your healthcare doesn’t suffer, you need to take control of your care. One crucial way to do that is to make sure you have access to your own Electronic Health Records, or EHRs. The following are some of the major reasons you need to be involved in your own health information management.
- You can reduce medical errors and potentially fatal results. When you have a complicated medical issue, you usually come in contact with several medical professionals. When your electronic health records, (sometimes referred to as electronic medical records), are available to share, you and each professional will have the most accurate and current details on your situation, saving you time and frustration. Every provider will be aware of any complication that could arise and avoid tragic results from something being overlooked.
- It will prevent duplication of testing. When more than one professional is involved in your care, having your EHR information makes sharing information much easier. No more unnecessary spending because your records aren’t at both offices. Put that expense towards treating the issue at hand.
- There can be a seamless transition if you have to move or change doctors. As our society becomes more global we are also becoming more mobile. As people move, paper medical or health records can get lost or forgotten, and providers change offices, hospitals, or retire. Securing your records is much easier and simpler when they are EHRs, and they give you peace of mind knowing both you and your family will have continuity in care when all your records can follow.
- Your safety will improve when it comes to drug interaction. Your health care professionals will need access to all your medical records to be sure anything they prescribe won’t cause a complication or negate the efficacy of a current prescription. Your EHRs will have all that information, readily available and easy to read for the pharmacy, two critical issues that can’t be counted on with paper records coming from numerous sources.
- Your EHRs should improve the security of your medical records. With paper, records can get misfiled or lost in a drawer full of other records. Mailed records sent to other providers could be incomplete and/or illegible. Medical providers with cloud based EHRs can give you the ability to view your records online 24/7, so you can see your information in private and when it is convenient for you.
- Communication between you and your health providers will be enhanced. When your doctor writes a prescription there should be no mistake about what the prescription is treating or details regarding dosage time and amount. Follow up instructions are easier to read and you won’t have to wait for office hours with questions, delaying your care.
- Electronic records help make your care more “measureable” so trends can be found. Any local or regionalized illness like food poisoning can be spotted sooner by your doctor so that fewer people get ill or their illness is less severe because it was diagnosed quickly.
- You may actually get more time with your health care providers. When your providers don’t have to search through several documents to find the information they need, it frees up their time to spend on you. Wait times can be more efficient as there is less wasted time finding and documenting records. Better efficiency in the office can help keep costs under control and that may translate to patient costs, as well. That makes healthcare better for everyone.
With more medical specialists, and all medical professionals having to balance their time between their business and their patients, you need to be involved in the medical management of your own records. Talk to your medical providers about providing you with EHRs. If they have any questions, professionals like those at OmniMD.com can help your provider tailor a system to their health specialty and provide you with the information you need to take charge of your care.
