Everyone probably realizes by now that I love to read first hand experiences with EMR and EHR. I guess I’ve always loved stories and I’ve always loved to tell stories, so maybe that’s where that comes from. I guess this is why I loved Katherine Rourke’s post called “Would An EMR Have Improved My Son’s ED Care?” on the Hospital EMR and EHR website. It’s a great read if you love first hand experiences with EMR as I do.
Katherine does raise a challenging question, “Does an EMR improve patient care?”
In past presentations, I’ve always put the idea of an EMR improving patient care under the “possible EHR benefits.” (See a full list of EMR and EHR Benefits) As many things in life there’s a big “Depends!” that is the b est answer to that question. The answer to this question depends on what kind of care you were offering previously, the type of care you offer, the EMR you chose, the features you chose to employ in that EMR, the match between your workflow and the EMR workflow, and I’m sure another dozen other depends as well.
What’s more important to point out is that an EMR can improve patient care. I certainly can’t guarantee that an EMR will improve patient care in your clinic, but I’ve seen many cases where it has improved patient care and so I know it’s possible. The biggest determining factor in whether an EMR will improve patient care in your clinic is your desire to have it do so.
Many times in life, you get what you want. Do you want an EMR to improve your patient care? Or were you too focused on wanting to get the EHR Incentive money? Not that these and other benefits are mutually exclusive, but the focus of your EHR implementation matters a lot. Make sure you’re focused on the right things and your EMR selection and implementation will go 100 times better. In fact, it will even improve patient care if you want it to.
Hi, yes EMR can improve the patient care if used in a right manner (meaningful use emr), else the whole purpose of implementing it would go in waste.