EMR (electronic medical records) is the new buzz word in the healthcare industry, truly speaking it’s the need of the modern healthcare practice. Modernization has brought a number of goodies for us; however, nothing comes without a price and so is modernization. The life in the modernized world has become mechanical resulting into drastic increase in health issues. Added to this are factors such as alarming level of pollution, genetic modification of crops and development of resistance among various bacteria / viruses and so on. As a result the pressure to deliver better quantity and quality of patient service at improved margins has mounted upon modern healthcare practice. The adoption of health IT solutions like EMR (electronic medical records), practice management, billing management and other health IT systems seems to be the answer.

The current method of manual practice management carries a number of difficulties such as management of paper based patient medical records, requirement of large storage space, redundancy of work, excess time consumption, lack of detailed patient information, lack of flexibility in accessing patient information, delays / rejections in claims reimbursement and so on. The entire revenue cycle kills majority of productive time, results into dissatisfaction among patients and generates poor profit margins for the practice. The manual process diverts the attention of healthcare professions from their mainstream function of patient care to a number of other back-end practice management issues. With the use of EMR (electronic medical records) the overall functions of the practice can be streamlined and optimum levels of margins can be achieved.

An EMR (electronic medical records) is a gift of health IT technology to the healthcare industry. The system helps to record and maintain the patient medical records in the electronic format, thus eliminating the need to maintain paper based files. The system provides with readily available data input forms that helps with easy selection of service codes and other inputs. The patient information can be entered with much detail that can aide in the overall process of diagnosis and treatment. As the information is stored in the electronic format, the information retrieval becomes quite easier especially it can prove to be a boon at times of emergency situation. With the help of the electronic medical records system the entire back-end process of practice management can be streamlined.

Implementation of an EMR (electronic medical records) system could be of great help and support to physicians, hospitals as well as patients, however, the success to a great extent would depend on the selection process as well as its utilization. As far as selection of the system is concerned the challenge is to make an appropriate choice as regards the vendor and the software features. Not all the available software may be suitable for the practice; it truly depends on the requirements of a particular practice. Hence a careful evaluation of the existing process of practice management is a must before making any final choice.

Once a right EMR (electronic medical records) system is selected, installed and used in a right manner the practice can start to reap the benefits of better productivity, improved quality of patient service and increase in ROI. With so many advantages, it is worth asking a question - can a modern practice afford to ignore EMR? And the answer for sure would be "NO".