Pros and Cons of EMR Systems

Extract feeds data into EMR Systems (electronic medical record systems), and keeps a constant conversation open between administrators and clinicians. There are positives and negatives to everything, including your healthcare organization’s EMR. 

Since the much cited survey from RAND and the AMA from 2013 that covered what physicians felt were the “pros and cons” of EMRs, not many of the cons have addressed as large enough issues to change. More recent blogs contain the same kinds of complaints and go on to question whether or not the quality of care has improved with EMRs (still no conclusive evidence). 

The Cons of Emr systems according to clinicians

I think we all know the general nature of the “cons” that are stated by clinicians about EMRs. They are time consuming, contain way too much information, and get in the way of connecting with the patient. 

The Necessity of EMr systems

If you work in healthcare, then you know why EMRs are considered necessary by healthcare organizations and the industry:

• Hold and organize higher quality patient information
• Theoretically make information sharing easier
• Allow standards to be defined and measured easily
• Allow the patient better access to their own data and communicate better with their doctor
• Allow clinicians and hospitals to get paid…

BENEFITS OF EMR systemS

What struck me as I was looking back at the survey, blogs, and articles was why physicians stated that they actually benefited from EMR systems. The main points were because they had better access to data, could more accurately see trends, and could share data with other physicians and the patients themselves.

The further conclusion that I took from these points is that if all the attachments (faxes and scanned documents) from a patient’s record could be automatically combed through, and have the most important data from them entered discretely into relevant fields, then there would be a real benefit from using the EMR. The ability to see trends and to share that data would be maximized and the physician would see what they need to make better decisions, improving the quality of health care provided to the patent. 

If you want higher quality data out of faxes and scanned documents, and migrated appropriately into discrete fields in your EMR…