With the U.S. Governments ongoing crusade to encourage doctors and hospitals to adopt electronic record systems, (2) terms are used to refer to these types of systems. The first term and still the most popular term amongst the public is EMR. The term stands for “electronic medical records”. This term was first used to describe when a doctor’s office or a hospital would go paperless and end the use of paper charting. With this technology, all paper documents would be taken from the paper chart and scanned to create digital documents.
The other term used to describe the use of electronic records in healthcare is called EHR. This term stands for “electronic health records”. When compared to “electronic medical records”, “electronic health records” is the same thing. For whatever reason, the term referred to go paperless is shifting from the term (EMR) electronic medical records to (EHR) electronic health records. Knowing the latest terms used in the industry is important when talking to your healthcare provider.
Since 2009, the United States has seen a rapid increase each year in the adoption of EHR systems. It is estimated that approximately 60% of healthcare providers have adopted some type of EHR system. This is a huge increase compared to 2000 when less than 10% of healthcare providers were using some type of electronic medical record system. Currently there are an estimated 250 EHR systems being sold in the U.S. market to healthcare providers. Prior to 2009 there were less than 70 EHR system vendors in the market. The increase in the number of EHR systems in the market is a direct result of the financial incentive program offered by the federal government. The program is known as the High Tech Act and has allocated funds to healthcare providers that were willing to invest in electronic health record technology. In order for the healthcare providers to earn the financial incentives offered by the federal government, these providers are required to submit specific reporting over a four year period to the federal government. If successful, each doctor could earn up to $44,000.00 in financial incentives. These incentives would pay for the investment into the EHR.
ViewMyHealthRecords.com corporate mission has been to simplify the connection between patients and their healthcare providers. The majority of healthcare providers store their patient’s health records on servers located at their medical clinic. ViewMyHealthRecords.com has developed the technology that enables patients to access their health records without physically logging into their doctors server. Once a patient is registered with ViewMyHealthRecords.com, they are able to login and review their health records 24/7. Each time a patient logs in to check their health records; ViewMyHealthRecords.com instantly connects to their doctor’s server via a secured connection. The data on file at your doctor’s office is then available for review online. Once the patient logs off, an email confirmation is sent from ViewMyHealthRecords.com to the patient confirming the date and time of access to the health record. This security features alerts the patient each time there is access to the account.
As the leading technology provider for online access to health records, ViewMyHealthRecords.com continues to develop new technology to keep patients informed of changes to their health records. If your doctor is not currently providing online access to your health records then recommend they contact viewmyhealthrecords.com today. We will work with your doctor to provide online access to your health records 24/7.