Most of the doctors when getting to the EMR system from the paper-based records system only want to have the major operations digitalized and they don’t really know that what additional qualities and features the EMR systems have. Most of the doctors actually resist the EMR system implementation because they don’t really expect and are unaware of the most aspects of the EMR systems. Whereas, the cost of the EMR system is felt to be a lot and this perceptions keeps them away from the implementation. Once they have decided to implement the EMR system and have read in detail about the features, functions and benefits provided by the EMR system, they come to know how useful they can be according to their specific practice.
The EMR systems are focused according to the nature of practice i.e. cardiology, pediatrics, neurology, orthopedics, dental hence, all the medical specialties may have different EMR systems to implement. This factor may increase or decrease the cost of implementation for each practice. We will to discuss the general features which must be included in all the EMR system which can be of any practice. The general EMR system features are
– Appointments and scheduling
– Alerts
– Decision support
– Documentation and clerical operations
– E-prescribing
– Health maintenance
– Interfaces
– Outsourced billing
– Role based security
– Revenue information management
– Internal messaging
– Patient portal
– Mobility
– Client server/web based
All these features must also be included in any EMR system and other features can be embedded as well anytime if needed. These EMR features must be included in every EMR to ensure the best service delivery to the patients. These features are said to be the compulsory features which are needed by all the practices. The other optional features can be added according to the size of the institute where EMR system is implemented, number of people using it and other totally specialized EMR features according to specialists’ requirements.
