User:Kac1124/sandbox

EHR systems are designed to store data accurately and to capture the state of a patient across time. It eliminates the need to track down a patient's previous paper medical records and assists in ensuring data is up-to-date, accurate and legible. It also allows open communication between the patient and the provider, while providing “privacy and security.” It can reduce risk of data replication as there is only one modifiable file, which means the file is more likely up to date, and decreases risk of lost paperwork and is cost efficient. Due to the digital information being searchable and in a single file, EMRs (electronic medical records) are more effective when extracting medical data for the examination of possible trends and long term changes in a patient. Population-based studies of medical records may also be facilitated by the widespread adoption of EHRs and EMRs.

The increased transparency, portability, and accessibility acquired by the adoption of electronic medical records may increase the ease with which they can be accessed by healthcare professionals, but also can increase the amount of stolen information by unauthorized persons or unscrupulous users versus paper medical records, as acknowledged by the increased security requirements for electronic medical records included in the Health Information and Accessibility Act and by large-scale breaches in confidential records reported by EMR users.[8][9] When users log in into the electronic health records, it is their responsibility to make sure the information stays confidential and this is done by keeping their passwords unknown to others and logging off before leaving the station.

Handwritten paper medical records may be poorly legible, which can contribute to medical errors.[10] Pre-printed forms, standardization of abbreviations and standards for penmanship were encouraged to improve the reliability of paper medical records. An example of possible medical errors is the administration of medication. Medication is an intervention that can turn a person's status from stable to unstable very quickly. With paper documentation it is very easy to not properly document the administration of medication, the time given, or errors such as giving the “wrong drug, dose, form, or not checking for allergies” and could affect the patient negatively. It has been reported that these errors have been reduced by “55-83%” because records are now online and require certain steps to avoid these errors.

For several decades, electronic health records (EHRs) have been touted as key to increasing quality care.[3] Electronic health records are used for other reasons than charting for patients, today, providers are using data from patient records to improve quality outcomes through their care management programs. EHR combines all patients demographics into a large pool, and uses this information to assist with the creation of “new treatments or innovation in healthcare delivery” which overall improves the goals in healthcare. Combining multiple types of clinical data from the system's health records has helped clinicians identify and stratify chronically ill patients. EHR can improve quality care by using the data and analytics to prevent hospitalizations among high-risk patients.