by Ronald Manalastas

Created on: April 22, 2010

The long journey to the future success of healthcare starts with “electronic medical records” (EMR), a software-based solution that provides for the digital computerization, recording, and maintenance of patient and medical practice information. The EMR solution addresses the need to establish quality in patient care and viability in medical practice. It seeks to ensure the rendition of accurate, efficient, organized, and collaborative exercise of practice competencies for predictable and favorable patient outcomes.  

Although EMRs came to life in the 1960’s, the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which promotes EMR system adoption among healthcare practitioners, and grants incentives to meaningful EMR use, reaffirms the strategic importance of large-scale EMR adoption as a healthcare development catalyst.

The future of healthcare centrally relates to how the industry can engender more effective care and successful outcomes in less time and money. This key concern is exactly the powerful rationale behind the conception, development, and continued support for the EMR - with the US government assuming a center stage presence in its massive adoption across hospitals and non-hospital-based healthcare venues.

The EMR runs either as a full or basic software system. A full EMR combines the computerization of healthcare information about the patient (e.g. history, programs, diagnosis, surgery, medication, immunization, or prescription) and physician practice (e.g. consultations, services, orders, clinical report, billing, insurance processing, and patient profiles). Basic EMR refers to the computerization of healthcare information about the patient only.

As a technology-driven, process-based, and HIPAA-compliant solution, EMR will play a pivotal role in charting the future of healthcare inasmuch as it remains aligned with the following trends:

1. Migration to non-Hospital-based healthcare

The rendition of healthcare services will continue to be more and more out of the hospitals as the focus of patient treatment will be more on diagnostic and preventive intervention rather than on acute care. More interventions will be done in clinics, physicians’ offices, homes, and other non-hospital-based venues. Today, no less than 76% of the 1,042,000 doctors of medicine in the US are non-hospital-based. These doctors independently provide general, family, and specialized healthcare services in about 263,000 physician’s

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