What is an Electronic Health Records (EHR) Software?

The term EHR Software or Electronic Health Records simply envelopes maintaining medical records for patients electronically, through the use of a computer system. The software tailored for physicians and other professional medical staff to store huge sets of patient information such as their demographics or even specific clinical data, such as social history, medical history, lab reports, etc. is known as an Electronic Health Records (EHR) Software.

Finding the right Electronic Health Records (EHR) Software for your medical practice can be a hectic and time-consuming project. With more than 600 EHR/EMR and Practice Management (PM) Software vendors in the market, there are numerous factors you need to consider when thinking of purchasing a new EMR Software or just switching to another one. Therefore, you must make sure that before finally making the investment, you have evaluated the software for every aspect and it suits your practice routine and workflows.

Benefits of Using EHR Software

Besides improving the clinical productivity and efficiency of the medical practice as a whole, EHR Software provide a lot of benefits to the physicians as well as the staff using it. These are listed below:

What to look for in an EHR Software?

As stated earlier, due to a large number of players in the EMR Software, it can be really difficult to shortlist one software which caters to all your needs and suits your routine practices. Here are some features you can look for before deciding on a software and purchasing or implementing it in your clinic.

  • Cloud-Based Connectivity for Secure Servers
  • Remote Access via Mobile Phone or handheld devices such as iPad etc.
  • ONC-ATCB Certification
  • Meaningful Use (MU) and HIPAA Compliance
  • Other integrated services such as:
    • Practice Management Suite
    • Patient Portal
    • Billing Services
    • e-Prescriptions (e-Rx) tool

Software Training & Support

For a smooth transition between your last medical records documenting technique (whether it be through paper records or a previous EHR System), and the newer EHR Software, it is essential that your staff is on the same page with you. The staff will need proper software training and support to get comfortable with it and use it better than the previous one. For this purpose, EMR Vendors provide live demos of the EHR Software Solutions as well as in-person training sessions, webinars, or even documented notes. Make sure you use all of these to get the most out of the training session and the EHR Software System itself.