Introduction
Innovative technologies have opened a pool of opportunities for healthcare organizations to improve the efficacy of care. Specifically, the issue of patient data management has been addressed more carefully with the advancement of care through the use of digital tools. Namely, healthcare organizations owe their steady increase in service quality to the Electronic Medical Records (EMR) and Electronic Health Records (EHR) technology to a large degree. However, the two tools need to be used in appropriate environments in order to maximize their utility and ensure patients’ well-being. In this paper, the difference between EHR and EMR will be discussed.
Body
Type of Health Facilities
As a rule, EHR is used in larger healthcare facilities, whereas EMR is adopted in local ones. The specified choice of digital health management tools is justified by the number of patients that they host and the type of responsibilities that they have to meet. Namely, larger organizations need to embrace the general situation in the target set in order to make forecasts and define the further strategy, which is why EHRs are recommended. In turn, in the local environment, EMR should be used as a means of managing a smaller range of patients.
Differences
Both EHR and EMR are expected to be used as a tool for containing patients’ data in a digital format. However, for the purposes of improved compartmentalizing of patients’ personal data, a functional distinction between the two must be drawn. Namely, the EHR tool is used in broader healthcare contexts, whereas the EMR tool provides more detailed and narrow information concerning a patient’s medical history (Alsadi & Saleh, 2019). The specified difference leads to more nuanced details that separate the two notions. For instance, unlike EHR, EMR is used strictly for diagnoses and treatment. In addition, EMR-related information is not typically transferred outside of the services of an individual practitioner (Alsadi & Saleh, 2019). Finally, unlike EMR, EHR is also designed to be actively shared with other healthcare professionals outside a particular healthcare facility where they have been obtained.
There are also multiple content-related differences between EMR and EHR. Apart from the more concise and patient-specific data that EMR provides, EMR also includes a range of graphic elements such as charts, diagrams, and images obtained in the course of testing and treatment (Agarwal & Kochhar, 2017). In turn, EMR tends to focus on more general information, which leads to fewer graphical elements being introduced into them. As a result, the opportunities for adding more legible information that is easier to discern is provided in EMR. Furthermore, a more effective arrangement of information and the ability to compartmentalize it in a more understandable manner makes EMR a more productive tool for healthcare experts to use when addressing the needs of specific patients (Agarwal & Kochhar, 2017). In turn, EHR contains the information that gives insights into the strategies for handling public health issues on a community level.
Continuity of Care
Innovative technology and especially the tools for managing patient-related information, lead to improvements in the continuity of care since they provide healthcare practitioners with the background information relevant to handling a specific case. As a result, patients’ needs are carefully met, with the focus on the prevention of health risks that are pertinent to a certain patient (Agarwal & Kochhar, 2017). Furthermore, the incorporation of EHR and EMR tools into the healthcare context leads to better transfer of information from one healthcare staff member to another, which implies that the management of patients’ needs is carried out accordingly. Medical errors are avoided more effectively with the application of EHR and EMR due to better control and transfer of data. Furthermore, in the cross-disciplinary context, information is transferred from one healthcare staff member to another, thus ensuring that the continuity of care is kept.
Summary/Conclusion
Although EHR and EMR are fairly different from each other, they serve to keep and protect patient information. The use of EHR and EMR will allow improving the efficacy of medical services both in regard to public health issues and in the environment of specific healthcare organizations. In the cross-disciplinary context, information is transferred from one healthcare staff member to another, thus ensuring that the continuity of care is kept. The specified aspect of EHR and EMR is particularly important during procedures such as patient handover.
References
Agarwal, R., & Kochhar, T. A. (2017). A review of PHR, EMR and EHR integration: Personalized healthcare and public health. JIMS8I-International Journal of Information Communication and Computing Technology, 5(2), 310-317.
Alsadi, M., & Saleh, A. (2019). Electronic health records implementation readiness: an integrative review. Open Journal of Nursing, 9(2), 152-162.