What is Electronic health record (EHR)?

Electronic health record (EHR) systems hold the digitalized medical information of patients. These may contain, but are not limited to, medical histories, a list of vaccinations and allergies, test results, prescription drug information, and insurance details.

EHR systems can be either remotely or locally hosted by a physician. With physician-hosted systems, the information is kept on the servers owned by the doctors. In this case, the clinic is liable for procuring the essential equipment and software as well as for their continuing upkeep.

In the meantime, EHR servers that are hosted remotely are situated outside of the hospital. Although the clinics collect their data, the system’s third-party provider is in charge of its management, including maintenance and security.

An electronic health record is a digital collection of medical information of a patient which includes the medical health history, diagnosis, medications, tests, allergies, immunizations, treatment plans, and other medical data. It is a patient-centered real-time database that makes information instantaneously and securely available to authorized users. An electronic health record (EHR) is another name for the electronic medical record. One of the fundamental characteristics of an EHR is the ability of authorized providers to create and manage health information in a digital format that can be shared with other providers across multiple healthcare organizations. The EHR system is designed to contain more comprehensive health data of the patients.

Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE), which was developed by the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health IT, is one of the key components of an Electronic Health Record (EHR). Instead of writing and sending paper-based prescriptions, the CPOE system enables doctors to issue orders for medications, laboratory and imaging tests, and other medical services online.