An EHR or an Electronic Health Record is a popular technology used by many larger health care providers all over the world, particularly in the US; though it’s wide spread was slower compared to its current expansions.

According to many professionals, the reason why EHR had become a standard is because of its many benefits which will not only improve how nurses and doctors access a patient’s record, but also improve their medical practices by minimizing medical errors.

Known Advantages of EHR

When ehr software was introduced in the market, many providers have promised a number of benefits that health care providers will experience when using an EHR application. Such promises are:

The Reduction of Costs

Many ehr software providers have promised that the implementation of this technology will significantly reduce the cost which is usually allocated for the use of health care providers, such as the use of paper records.

With the automation of gathering a patient’s health record, nurses or doctors wouldn’t have to file-in a patient’s record in a paper, which are usually stored for 7 years. In addition to the cost of the paper that health care providers are usually using, hospitals are also paying for the safe keeping of these records, which usually costs a lot in maintenance.

This promise, however, was cut short due to the fact that hospital administrators and physicians how had adopted EHR had also hired IT professionals who will keep the system maintained.

According to the U.S. Congressional Budget Office concluded that the cost savings may occur only in large integrated institutions like Kaiser Permanente, and not in small physician offices. They challenged the Rand Corp. estimates of savings, and office-based physicians wouldn’t benefit from an EHR.

Improved Medical Practices

The one thing that made EHR important for many larger health care institutions is because of the improved quality of care that EHR can offer health care institutions.

One of the main disadvantage of using pen and paper in gathering of health records is medical errors which are usually human-based.

EHR systems can help reduce medical errors by providing healthcare workers with decision support. Fast access to medical literature and current best practices in medicine are hypothesized to enable proliferation of ongoing improvements in healthcare efficacy.

A popular component of EHR is the Computerized Physician Order Entry or the CPOE which increases patient safety by listing instructions for physicians to follow when they prescribe drugs to patients.