Introduction
Electronic medical records are medical records in a digital format, which have many advantages over conventional paper-based records. This paper compares three different EMRs; ABELMed PM-EMR, Amazing Charts, and e-MDs Chart.
ABELMed PM-EMR is both easy to learn and use. During automating daily tasks, it is flexible enough to adapt to established workflows. Its comprehensive functions include patient and resource scheduling, clinical documentation, laboratory interfaces, transcription, billing, coding and claims processing, data management, documentation management, and patient portals, etc. Some of the features include: the ability to create encounters by using voice dictation, typing, mouse clicks or Tablet PC handwriting recognition, prescription writing with interaction alerts, document storage, inter-office communications, etc (EMR compare, 2007.)
Main body
It costs $10,000/physician and includes third-party software costs and other software-related costs. The cost of the required hardware to implement the system is $2000 plus. The recurring costs are $150-250/month after the first year. When compared to Amazing Charts and e-MDs Chart, ABELMed PM-EMR does not support the entry of medical history by the patient. ABELMed PM-EMR, however, provides 24/7 technical support while both Amazing Charts and e-MDs Chart do not.
Amazing Charts is a fully-featured EMR and includes scheduling, document management, interoffice messaging, amazing notes, and rapid documentation abilities (EMR compare, 2007). Cost-wise, it is the cheapest of the three (priced at just $995 plus $500/year for a solo physician). At present, it does not support encrypted email communications with patients (this feature is in development) while both e-MDs Chart and ABELMed PM-EMR have this feature.
e-MDs Chart is a customizable EMR that allows rapid and complete documentation (EMR compare, 2007). When compared to Amazing Charts and ABELMed PM-EMR, it does not allow subsequent access to changed or deleted data. Application software costs are about $7995 per provider, and third-party software costs and other software-related costs are extra.
Common features of all 3 products include providing; prescription refill requests by patient or pharmacist, submission of results by home monitoring devices, supporting audit trails, list and describe patient’s functional status, contain data defining the patient’s relevant current and historical clinical problems, conditions, diagnoses, symptoms, findings, and complaints, define the patient’s occupational, personal, social and environmental history and health risk factors, provide detailed lab, diagnostic and therapeutic results data, etc.
Conclusion
While all three brands of electronic medical records have many common features, Amazing Charts is the cheapest of the three, at just $995. However, it does not support encrypted email communications with patients, at present. Only ABELMed PM-EMR provides 24/7 technical support, although it does not support the entry of medical history by the patient. e-MDs Chart is priced in the midrange, and when compared to the other two brands, it does not allow subsequent access to changed or deleted data.
Reference
EMR compare. 2008. Web.