The digital collection of health records from a single patient is called an electronic health record. These are records that are maintained and updated in real time. Their information is easily passed out, and shared across various health care centres. This process is done with the help of enterprise wide information systems. Electronic Health Records (EHR) include data on medical history, allergies, medication, demographics, laboratory test results, and personal information. The EHR system is designed in such a way, that it tracks the patient's data accurately all the time. This allows the entire patient's medical history to be tracked down without viewing the previous records. It and also ensures that the data present is appropriate, accurate, and legible. It also removes data redundancy, that is no data is duplicated as only one modified file is available, which keeps updating. It can be viewed later on, thus reducing the need of more paperwork. In short EHR's can contain the medical history of the patient, diagnoses, treatment plans, medications, laboratory test outcomes, etc. for better patient diagnosis.
Electronic Health Records have been imposed as the most sustainable solution toward improving outcomes (Jeffrey A.Linder,2007). There have been serious efforts to improve the quality of health care, as the sick patients present in US receive half of the prescribed medical care (McGlynn EAAsch,2003). Solutions such as Health Information Technology (HIT) and Electronic Health Records (EHR) have been verified as the most cost effective solution for improving health care (Johnston, 2007). However, a study showed that systems which had the power of Health Information Technology, including Electronic Health Records, may increase the delivery and performance of quality care through less rates of medical mistakes, and clinical monitoring. They discovered no predictable relationship between EHR use, and the nature of wandering consideration (Hunt DLHaynes, 1998).
