Record keeping has gone on for centuries, but never like they are kept today. Now, digitized and electronically filed, records, including a patient’s medical chart and history is kept, accessed and updated using computers, tablets and other tools. This process is called keeping EHRs, or electronic health records installed by behavioral health software vendors, and they are making it easy to keep track of patients and their health like never before.
Just like any other record keeping, moving patients’ records from paper and physical filing systems to computers and their super storage capabilities creates great efficiencies for patients and their providers, as well as health payment systems.
But efficiency of using electronic health records software has some great benefits, not only for patients but for caregivers, too. For individual patients, access to good care becomes easier and safer when records can easily be shared. Important information, such as blood type, prescribed drugs, medical conditions and other aspects of our medical history, can be accounted for much more quickly. At the very least, an existing electronic health record, issued by behavioral health software vendors, can save time at the doctor’s office. Quick access to our records can be lifesaving if an emergency occurs and answers to those questions are needed during the emergency decision making process.
Recognizing the value of electronic medical record software, the federal government has put money and emphasis into making sure hospitals and healthcare clinics have the tools and the software needed. Provided by behavioral health software vendors, regular patients, as well as veterans can walk into hospitals across the country and have their records pulled up electronically thanks to electronic medical records software. Should a patient find himself in a hospital, the hospital will have the same access to his or her records that the hometown hospital does.
What’s more, the government set up an incentive system to encourage providers to implement electronic health records and adhere to a list of criteria to improve care and patient access. A lot of these measures have to do with a patient’s safety and privacy. In the past, the way a doctor obtained your health history was by asking you. Each time you visited a new doctor’s office, you filled out forms about your history, including previous surgeries, or the drugs you take on a regular basis. If you forgot a slice of crucial information, or if you didn’t write it down because it seemed unimportant to you, then your doctor didn’t have that piece of your medical puzzle with which to work.
When doctors share records electronically, your new doctor only needs to ask your name, birthdate, and possibly another piece of identifying information. She can then pull up your records from their electronic storage space. Diagnosis and treatment decisions might be altered based on that information, which is far more complete than what you might have written down on paper.
In the past, when a doctor closed his practice, retired, moved, or even died, patient records were lost or relocated, making it impossible for patients to get the records they needed to take to a new doctor. Using electronic health record software from behavioral health software vendors means the patient and the provider won’t be left without the records needed.
