As experts and professionals across the country try to find better ways to cut costs in the healthcare industry, one of the fastest growing trends is to utilize electronic medical record (EMR) services. Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany, Georgia, is one of the entities that’s making the move to improve and expand their electronic medical record software, according to the Albany ABC affiliate WALB.com.
Earlier this month, the Phoebe Putney Health System began using an EMR system from MEDITECH, a Massachusetts-area medical software and service company, in their hospital. The move to this new system was just one part of their ongoing efforts to improve the overall functionality as part of their ProjectONE plan to streamline regional healthcare systems and provide better individualized care.
A statement from the projects website, phoebeputney.com, read, “ProjectONE aims to improve patient safety, enhance quality of care, and maximize efficiency through standardization. It will create a single experience for our patients and staff across Phoebe Putney Health System.”
Bill Sewell, the Chief Medical Information Officer at Phoebe Putney, believes the moves being made will help them provide the best services.
“What it does is it gets every campus on board on the same electronic system,” said Sewell. “This computer system carries the patient from the front door until the time we discharge them home. And it allows for a better integration of all their records so that that certainly provides for better care.”
Electronic medical records improve overall efficiency by about 6% every year. Essentially, EMRs are platforms that store digital versions of a patients medical records.
Their purpose is to allow for easier, convenient, and efficient way for healthcare professionals to track and view data on specific patients. If the patient might need to see a specialist, for example, they can be transferred across the country in a matter of seconds.
Eventually, the hope is that hospitals, medical centers, and doctors offices around the country will be connected in such a way that patients and the healthcare professionals they want to see will have access to their records at a moment’s notice, no matter where they were treated or diagnosed beforehand.