Advantages of Connecting Medical Devices to an EMR

Electronic medical records have proven to be revolutionary for healthcare professionals. Flexibility, speed, and reduced storage are some of the few benefits of digitalizing medical records. With the advancement in healthcare technology, connecting devices like blood pressure cuffs, glucometers, or pulse oximeters can monitor minute details, drastically improving diagnosis, prognosis, and patient care. Integrating the medical devices in the EMR provides more accurate and up-to-date information about the patient and can help raise any red flag before it is too long.

EMR integration with medical records in BC can smooth out the data access process for all the key healthcare stakeholders. Medical devices are connected to electronic medical records using EMR software, adaptors, or device drivers. For example, the patients under observation wear wristbands, and the staff regularly scans these wristbands to correspondingly update the records in the EMR databases to monitor the patients. 

Minimization of Errors

Manual entry of patient data exposes the patient’s data to several human errors. Most of the time, busy healthcare professionals carry out data entry, whether nurses, secretaries, or even busy doctors. It is universally accepted that healthcare is a fast and high-pressure environment. With doctors concerned more about the patients’ health, errors during the data entry process are inevitable. Sometimes, they may be in the form of transcription errors. For example, the medic may note down the wrong diastolic pressure, resulting in an inaccurate dosage of hypertension medicines. Providing an incorrect dosage of hypertension medicine can leave the patient experiencing some disastrous health consequences. 

On other occasions, connecting medical devices to EMR help give early warning signs when detecting any anomalies in the patient records and prevent the development of serious health issues. Integrating medical devices in the EMR will eliminate the incidence of documentation errors. The connectivity of the EMR and the medical devices using EMR software from reliable EMR Vendors in BC guarantees a high level of data accuracy. It maintains the integrity of patients’ data.

Time-Saving

An NCBI study revealed that background physicians spent 35% of their shifts documenting patients’ vital signs before introducing medical device integration into the EMR. For a doctor working a 16-hour shift, that’s a solid 5 hours and 36 minutes of documentation of patient data. Collectively, these are many valuable times lost to documentation. Manually entering data into the EMR system is time-consuming, and the time spent on documentation has better uses: patient care. Using reliable EMR software automatically updates patients’ medical records with real-time data without the intervention of medical professionals. 

Saving those invaluable hours can make a difference in the precious lives of patients. Automating data entry will allow healthcare professionals to give their undivided attention to their patients. It removes time inefficiencies that can be invested in taking care of the patients and maintaining quality healthcare standards. Eventually, the patients will leave the hospital’s care highly satisfied with their treatment. EMR connectivity is not just about removing tedious processes but also about patient well-being. Time is crucial in healthcare, and the best investment of time is in patient care.

Regular Documentation

When the medical devices with medical records BC are integrated into the EMR, patients’ data is regularly updated to reflect the changes in their health and medical treatment. The patients’ records are updated after every hospital visitation. Regular documentation also eliminates the confusion that healthcare professionals face when entering data measured in a different metric. For example, a patient’s weight can be measured in kilograms or pounds. Again, with these inconsistencies in the patient’s data, the doctors can end up using an incorrect diagnostic approach.

When switching healthcare professionals, patients can easily request their previous healthcare provider to shift their records to the newer healthcare providers. Unlike in older times, the patient need not wait for the hospital to retrieve all the patient’s data physically, and the patient is also spared the hassle of physically carrying their files from one hospital to another. It reduces the risk of patients losing their medical records BC during extreme medical emergencies.

Cost Efficiency

Physical storage space, filing cabinets, and papers can accumulate high costs in large healthcare organizations. They are recurring costs to healthcare organizations that can be eliminated by a one-time purchase of the EMR integration software system. Saving the costs incurred due to manual data entry can free up finances, which can be used to purchase much-needed healthcare equipment and hire healthcare professionals. These are otherwise unavailable in their organizations to enhance patient care. The healthcare organization can reduce the number of base-level physicians who were hired only because most of the other physicians were occupied with manual data entry for a significant chunk of their shift.

Patients also benefit from reduced costs in several ways. The accuracy of the medical records BC can help the healthcare professionals predict if the patients require additional care or medication. This saves them costs that could be unnecessarily spent on doctors’ fees, expensive medications, and medical testing. 

Conclusion

The abovementioned software is critical for the timely management of patient records. Embedding medical devices in the EMR improves the quality of data. It reduces the burden on the hospital and the healthcare professionals who tirelessly work on updating the system with patient records. We are striving to develop electronic medical records BC. Visit our site to learn more about EMR software and take advantage of the countless benefits EMR has to offer.

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