In the past decade, technology has been used more frequently all over the world. In the healthcare field, the use of technology has helped to maintain organization and improve overall patient care. The management of medical records is important for every patient to ensure proper and adequate care. Although there are still manual hard copy records available, today’s technology has allowed for patients to have their medical records kept electronically. According to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (2012) “An Electronic Health Record (EHR) is an electronic version of a patient’s medical history, that is maintained by the provider over time, and may include all of the key administrative clinical data relevant to that persons care under a particular provider”. There are benefits and disadvantages to both electronic records and manual records.
A problem with manual medical records is sometimes paperwork gets lost. This can happen in different ways such as filing a document in the wrong record, or accidentally leaving paperwork out when making updates to the record and not putting it back in. Having an electronic medical record will prevent this from happening. With electronic records the medical information is input directly by the healthcare provider into a patient’s file.
When seeing a patient for a chronic issue, having an electronic medical record makes it very convenient for a doctor to review pertinent past medical history of their patients. Electronic records can save the provider time from having to search through a manual medical record file that may contain several papers for different issues of the patient. Electronic records are easier to search through because they are more organized. With manual records when they are filed by date seen and not by reason seen. Electronic medical records more convenient and is less time consuming when searching for a specific note or test within the record. Electronic records are easier to search...