What are Electronic Health Records (EHR)?

What are the benefits of electronic health records?

Electronic health record solutions allow health information to be created, managed, and shared by authorized providers in an electronic format. This information is sharable with other physicians and caregivers across various departments and care organizations, including labs, specialists, medical imaging facilities, pharmacies, and clinics, to coordinate patient care in real-time no matter where the provider is.

Electronic health records are capable of so much more than their paper predecessors. Electronic health records are designed to surpass standard clinical data collection while providing a broader, more interactive, even searchable view of a patient’s care wherever the care is required. Therefore, information is available wherever and whenever it is needed to improve patient care, increase patient engagement, provide care coordination, reduce costs, improve diagnosis, and better care outcomes.

What are the advantages of electronic health records?

The electronic version of a patient’s health record collects and collates copious amounts of health information about patients and their health conditions. The technology provides several benefits, including:

• Electronic health records can transfer data between caregivers and facilities for all clinicians who are part of a patient’s care. Specific advantages of electronic health records include:
• Readily available up-to-date health information about patients at the point of care
• Secure sharing of health information between physicians and care teams
• Easier access to patient information, even remotely
• Electronic health records provide quicker access to patient records and a completer and more accurate picture of a patient’s overall health while reducing costs associated with paperwork previously used to capture patient data.
• Electronic health records also enable safer prescribing and reduce medical errors.

What are the disadvantages of electronic health records?

As with all good things, there are some disadvantages of electronic health records. Security and privacy are the two primary concerns. Specifically, patient data can be exposed if an EHR is hacked or breached. However, provider communication can be secured through technologies such as TigerConnect. Because the continuum of care goes beyond the confines of physical sites and organizational structures, TigerConnect goes wherever patients and providers are. TigerConnect is more than just a communications tool; it’s an advanced operations platform. Highly scalable, agnostic to internal environments, and HITRUST-certified for data security.

What technology connects to electronic health records?

Several communication solutions can populate EHRs with patient health data and other info. These can include voice and audio recordings, text, and email. Unfortunately, however, EHR systems are not designed for quick, easy, actionable communication. You need a comprehensive, secure clinical communication and collaboration (CC&C) system like TigerConnect to fully-integrate with and work alongside the EHR.

How does TigerConnect integrate with electronic health records?

With the TigerConnect Connection Hub, you can turn your EHR into a system of action, rather than a system of record, where team communication meets real-time patient data on a single platform. That means only the most relevant information is made actionable at the point of care. TigerConnect centralizes and intelligently routes patient data from critical systems like the EHR and pushes it to a secure mobile device where it can be read, shared, and acted upon for faster, better quality patient care.

Additionally, TigerConnect’s EHR integration services place each patient at the center of the care experience by providing detailed alerts around admissions, discharges, transfers, and care team management. Interactive messages displayed in the message feed make it easy for staff to coordinate efforts at each phase of care, and newly added members can see prior conversations about the patient from the moment admitted.

Providers also receive alerts anytime a patient is admitted, discharged, or transferred; create or modify members of a patient’s care team at every stage, and ensure continuity of care using role-based shift assignments.

To learn more about TigerConnect and our integration solutions, visit our platform solution.