Modern healthcare organizations have turned to electronic medical records (EMRs) in an effort to standardize documentation, prevent errors, be more concise in their charting, and ultimately drive efficiency and better care outcomes for patients.
Depending on the healthcare provider you speak to, industry professionals have mixed feelings on EMRs. In fact, providers report that their workload has increased due to the introduction of EMRs to their practice. While the intentions behind EMRs are good, physicians, specialists, and nurses are often instead left feeling frustrated.
Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) are systems that serve as an electronic version of the patient charts in a healthcare provider’s office and contain the medical history of the patient in that one practice, allowing healthcare providers to track data—such as blood pressure or vaccinations—over time, identify which patients are due for checkups, and improve the overall quality of care within the practice.
However, EMRs come with both pros and cons when utilized within a healthcare organization:
As you evaluate the pros and cons of Electronic Medical Records, it is important to put patients and their privacy first. Widespread adoption of EMRs has served a key role in making personal health information (PHI) more accessible and secure. However, these systems aren’t perfect and many care scenarios require immediate access to PHI, so health workers often take the path of least resistance and use email and file systems to share it—making email and file protection a centerpiece of any healthcare data security program… and critical for HIPAA compliance.
Digital workflows and cloud-based systems bring plentiful opportunities to healthcare organizations, but they can also carry significant risks for patient confidentiality and HIPAA compliance. EMRs and traditional methods of protection don’t always support the dynamic, rapid care collaboration needed for modern health systems, leaving users frustrated and putting care outcomes at risk.
If you’re interested in learning how Virtru can help modernize your provider-to-patient and provider-to-provider communications, please get in touch with us today or download a copy of our guide below.
Enabling HIPAA Compliant Digital Healthcare Services
This guide explores how the digital transformation is impacting the healthcare industry, how traditional approaches to protecting PHI tend to interfere with care delivery, reduce patient engagement, and can adversely impact outcomes, and how Virtru’s data-centric, user-first protections allow for secure sharing of PHI, no EMR required.
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