Not too long ago, doctors updated patient records by hand. They painstakingly wrote down details of office visits — then photocopied, faxed, or scanned these paper charts whenever patients needed the information to be shared with others. Today, thanks to technological advances, doctors have more options. Instead of taking handwritten notes, most healthcare providers type information into a computer, instantly updating patient files to create electronic health records (EHRs).

EHRs bring a number of benefits to the healthcare industry as well as the many other industries that work with patient information. While most health records today are still sent as traditional, image-based files, data-based EHRs that can be shared more flexibly and quickly are becoming increasingly available, opening up new possibilities for simplifying and streamlining work in many fields of work.

Wondering if your organization might benefit from switching to EHRs? Read on for a full-picture view of what EHRs are, how they can be useful, and which industries might benefit most from them.

What is an EHR?

Put simply, an electronic health record (EHR) is a patient chart in a data-based format.

Just like a traditional, image-based patient record, an EHR contains details of a patient’s medical history, including their lab results, radiology images, treatment plans, medications, and the like. Traditional patient records, however, come in paper or image-based formats such as PDFs or JPGs. In contrast, EHRs come in data-based formats.

Why are EHRs useful?

Both EHRs and traditional health records contain the same critical information. However, the structured, data-based format of EHRs can offer important benefits when key factors — such as speed or customization of data — is of the essence.

For starters, EHRs can be transmitted near-instantaneously, at the same speed as email — much faster than traditional health records, which usually take from days to weeks to transmit. EHRs can also help minimize human error and improve the privacy and security of patient information through the use of audit trails and digital encryption.

Perhaps most importantly, EHRs are more flexible to work with. Because they are data-based, the information in EHRs can be more easily parsed, streamlined, organized, and structured as needed. An individual’s change in weight over time, for example, could be quickly pulled into a chart for easy viewing of overall trends. Traditional health records, on the other hand, would require a page-by-page manual review for the same information.

Which industries use EHR?

EHRs are used by a growing number of industries today, and the migration from traditional health records to EHRs will continue in the years to come. The healthcare industry itself has already largely switched from traditional medical records to EHRs, citing benefits ranging from cost savings to better patient care. But the legal and insurance industries are also following suit. The underwriting and claims departments of life insurance companies in particular are turning to EHRs to speed up their health records reviews processes.

Because ReleasePoint offers traditional and electronic medical record retrieval services, making the switch from one to the other is a simple and seamless experience. Not sure which type of record is the right choice for your organization? Get in touch with us for an assessment and recommendation that best meets your needs.