Electronic Medical Records Systems Comparison

We will continue our discussion on electronic medical record systems benefits and the comparison to paper medical records systems.

In case of medical records all information including laboratory and radiology reports are prepared in chronological order. You can access entries more efficiently than progress notes. In the case of electronic medical record systems, the reports are stored in any number of ways and all the information can be accesses quickly. The access to specific information and reports is also very quick.

In case a paper chart has to be searched then a staff member must manually sift through the pages and then find out the specific paper chart. He then has to place a placeholder so that the chart can be put in the original place after reference. In the case of searching for electronic chart, there is no need to sift through the records, as the powerful search feature will display the record that you required.

In the case of a paper chart system, the staff has to follow many steps to write a paper prescription. He has to consult a reference for the commonly prescribed drugs for the medication. Then he has to verify the prescription form and then verify the patient’s allergy status. In addition, he has to verify the patient’s other formulary requirements. However in the case of electronic medical record systems all the data is stored in a DBMS systems and all the tables are related on particular fields. In other words all the records are related and this robust system performs all the checking like allergy to drugs, etc automatically. The system can send the prescription to the pharmacy automatically while at the same time documenting the whole process and updating the patient’s medical records.

Hence, we conclude that electronic medical record systems are far better than paper medical records in many aspects.