EMR and Practice Management systems - Brotherhood of Healthcare Technology

The physicians are adapted to being able to quickly capture the financial data necessary for their billing staff to file the claim and get compensated for services provided. Anything that slows them down will not be easily acknowledged. Even in a well-integrated system there are workflow and process coordination problems. Since time is a major factor for healthcare professionals, there have been a few major breakthroughs in the medical sector, focusing on one important goal; to craft a medical practice solution that capitalizes on the benefits.  With time there has been an introduction of EMR (Electronic Medical Record) and PMS (Practice Management System) to support physicians and save time. 

EMR – An Introduction:

An electronic medical record (EMR) is a computerized medical record, created in an organization that delivers healthcare services, such as a hospital or physician’s office. Electronic medical records are apt to be a part of a local stand-alone health material system that allows storage, recovery and amendment of records. Paper based records are still by far the most common method of recording patient information for most hospitals and practices around the world.  Majority of doctors still find their ease of data entry and low cost hard to part with. However, as easy as they are for the doctor to record medical data at the point of care, they require a significant amount of storage space compared to digital records. In the US, most states require physical records be held for a minimum of seven years. The costs of storage media, such as paper and film, per unit of information diverge dramatically from that of electronic storage media. When paper records are stored in different locations, assembling them to a single location for review by a healthcare provider is time-consuming and problematic, whereas the process can be simplified with electronic records. 

When paper-based records are required in multiple locations, copying, faxing, and transporting costs are significant compared to replication and transfer of digital records. Because of these many “after entry” benefits, governments, insurance companies and other large medical institutions are heavily promoting the adoption of electronic medical records. Some EMR systems spontaneously monitor clinical events, by analyzing patient data from an Electronic Health Record to foretell, distinguish and potentially avert adverse events. This can include discharge/transfer orders, pharmacy orders, radiology results, laboratory results and any other data from subsidiary services or provider notes. 

PMS – An Introduction:

Practice management software (PMS) is a category of software that deals with the day-to-day operations of a medical facility. The software allows users to capture patient demographics, appointments, maintain lists of insurance payers, perform billing tasks, and engender reports. PMS is often divided amongst desktop-only software, client-server software, or Internet-based software. The desktop variety is to be used only on one particular computer by one or a handful of users sharing access. Client-server software is typically used in a large medical facility where a central server runs the software, while individual users’ workstations contain client software that feeds data to the server. Client-server software allows multiple users to share the data and the amount of work. Internet-based software is a relatively newer breed of PMS. Such software drops the need for the practice to run their own server and worry about safekeeping and consistency. However, such software removes patient data from the practice’s premises, which can be seen as a security risk of its own.

PMS is often connected to Electronic medical records (EMR) systems. While some information in a PMS and an EMR overlaps e.g. patient and provider statistics in general the EMR system is used for the supporting the practice with clinical matters, while PMS is used for organizational and monetary matters. Medical experts often hire different suppliers to provide the EMR and PMS systems.

The integration of the EMR and PMS software is considered one of the most challenging aspects of the Medical practice management software implementation, but can prove useful and convenient in the future.