Hospital information system – HealtheLife – Bettering healthcare through data

When it comes to a few certain technical terms in the field of healthcare, there seems to be a few misconceptions and confusions. With the onset of digital technology, a number of new technologies and terms have cropped up in healthcare IT further adding to the misconceptions. Today, a lot of people confuse between an HIS, PHR, EMR and EHR. For most of us, these invariably mean more or less the same thing. However, they are not. These terms are often misinterpreted and considered interchangeable. There are subtle differences among them and these subtleties are what define their role in healthcare delivery.

This article is all about bringing to light the differences among the three distinct concepts and helping you leverage the potential of each for your Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy wellness centers. Read on.

Personal Health Record(PHR)

PHR is a tool to collect, track and share past and current information about your health or the health of someone in your care. Your PHR may save you the money and inconvenience of repeating routine medical tests and give medical care providers more insight into your personal health. It can further help you become responsible for making decisions about your health.

However, please be aware that medical records(EHR & EMR) and your personal health record (PHR) are not the same thing. Medical records contain information about your health compiled and maintained by your healthcare providers. A PHR is information about your health compiled and maintained by you. You can read more about PHRs here.

Hospital Information System(HIS)

On the other hand, an HIS stands for Hospital Information System! This is a more clearly understood concept when compared to EHRs, EMRs & PHRs and revolves basically around hospital management and optimized administration. Hospital Information Systems involve computers and applications for the management of a clinic, nursing home or a hospital’s everyday operations. Modern systems allow for automation of several redundant tasks and there are several providers of this platform. Some of the functionalities of a hospital information system include the following:

Patient registration and scheduling of appointments
Billing
Manage materials and supply-chain with 3rd party vendors and dispensaries
Laboratory, cardiology and radiology operations
Handle staffing and HR functions
Hospital CRM functions such as send automated emails on appointments, newsletters and more

Electronic Medical Record(EMR)

EMR stands for Electronic Medical Record. An EMR is the digital version of the paper charts related to health you find in clinics and doctors’ offices. An Electronic Medical Record contains details on the information collected by doctors and practicing physicians during your session of diagnosis and is used by them to deliver better healthcare services.

EMRs are designed to help the healthcare organization improve their internal record management and provide easy access them during ongoing care and repeat patient visits. EMR data is not inter-operable with EMR of the same person from other applications and so is not very helpful for the long term health management of the person

Electronic Health Record(EHR)

If you didn’t know, EHR stands for Electronic Health Record and is something that goes beyond an EMR. An EHR manages your health information following open standards (country specific and International) and hece the data from different EHR applications are inter-operable. EHRs can potentially contain lifelong details and information about a patient but differ from EMR in the fact that they contain reports from all clinicians or doctors involved in the patient’s healthcare.

EHRs allow not just one doctor or physician to use the information mentioned in the report for diagnosis purposes but anyone with who you intend to share the report or have access to your report. It is most effective when implemented as a centralized portal on the cloud (like the EHR.Network) that doctors and clinicians can have a comprehensive look at your medical data and get insights on earlier diagnosis, treatment agendas, scan reports and charts, side effects, blood pathogens and more. We have dedicated an entire blog post on EHRs and you can find the article here.

So, these were the basic differences among the four key terms you should know for your clinic or wellness resort. Interchanging technical terms can give rise to consequences and confusions and to stay clear of those, it’s better to know the basics. If you need any assistance in setting up an EHR in your hospital, clinic or wellness center, you can get in touch with us. You can also contact us to book a demo session of AyushEHR, the EHR solution for Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy.

Compelling Reasons Why Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy Needs to adopt Information Technology

Hospital Information System(HIS)

One of the major advantages of integrating HIS with Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy healthcare practices is that it paves way for seamless everyday operation. It allows clinicians to set reminders, tasks and alerts for patients and enable better engagement with them. For instance, sending out appointment reminders a day prior to the actual date, send follow-ups through emails or phone calls, reminders to schedule appointment for patients’ next visit, and more.

Besides, it also fosters a better supply-chain ecosystem, where your inventory of supplements are better monitored and maintained. HIS solutions are designed to keep track of your item dispenses and intimate you the expiring and low-on-stock items. These are the two major aspects when it comes to managing a clinic and those that require a lot of paperwork and efforts. HIS can give you real-time information on reports such as aging reports, summaries of supplies dispensed, reports on your services, trends, customer account statements and more.

Digitizing them and bringing all of them to one single portal makes operations interoperable. It also betters your engagement with patients by allowing you to send newsletters, information on any upcoming events, research or promotions, birthday emails and more.

Electronics Health Records (EHR)

EHR is a digital repository of patients’ health record. When you integrate a solution for your Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy healthcare practices, you create an environment for improved practice performances and measurement of key metrics. The analytics modules allow you to find meaningful insights on patients’ record and give you real-time information on the progress of treatment, trends in key diagnostic parameters, overall disease trends across patients and also decision support tools.

Customer Portal

Having a patient portal is inevitable today. It not just ensures a better healthcare practice but also allows you to formulate better treatment agendas and plans. Since this is centralized, any clinician or a practitioner of Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy can retrieve a patient’s health record and plan out medications and treatments. With the massive chunks of information on the patient in hand, the clinicians would also be able to make better and informed decisions and see trends through the solution’s analytics portal.

When information technology is rightly incorporated, you will experience better management of data and operations and find aspects for improvement in administration, patient engagement and healthcare practices. The technology is efficient, cost-effective and is inevitable today that will go on to become revolutionary tomorrow. With the renewed focus once again on Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy as mainline healthcare practices, it is important that the proponents leverage technology to ride this wave and take their crafts far and wide.

AyushEHR is a standards compliant EHR with integrated customer portal. To get a personalized advantages list of how an EHR and customer portal can work wonders for your organization, speak or get in touch with us.