The concept of Adult day Care Center is one of the preeminent initiatives ever taken- non-residential competence that supports the health, nutritional, social, and daily living essentials of adults in a professionally operated, group setting. We all owe big thanks to the one who came up with the idea of Adult Day Care Center.
From 2013 more than 5,000 Adult Day Care centers are operating in the United States, providing care for nearly more than 260,000 elderly Americans each day. However, most of them still follow the old school pattern and everything is done manually. Most of the centers are still not digitized. They manage all the records on papers. In this era where the world is growing digitally, and everyone is dependent on technology it’s very hard to maintain each and everyday routine and all the records manually. In between all these things an appropriate track-record is somewhat sacrificed or misplaced to some extent.
EMR and EHR are two popular approaches that are being adopted by many Health Centers, Clinics, Adult Day Care Center and etc.
What is the Difference between EMR and EHR?
Electronic medical records (EMRs) are the digital version of the paper charts in the clinician’s office comprising both ‘medical’ and ‘treatment’ history of the patients in one practice digitally like a list of medications, possible allergies, medical history or immunization dates over the old method of paper records. It works great within a practice, but are limited outside the practice. For instance, the patient’s record might even have to be printed out and delivered by mail to specialists and other members of the care team!
Whereas ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORD (EHR) is a digital medical record of a patient’s complete health information and generally contains all the information that one would find on a paper chart and a lot more. EHR is streamlined and data can be updated and shared in real-time. If a patient uses EHR, information can be easily moved along with them.
Advantages of EHR
‘Health’ covers a lot more grounds than the word ‘medical’. It would not be wrong if we say EHR is the ‘future of healthcare’:-
- EHRs are built to share information with the other health care providers and organizations– such as specialists, laboratories, emergency facilities, pharmacies, emergency facilities, medical imaging facilities, Adult Day care centers and school and workplace clinics as well.
- Streamlines provider’s workflow and Automates as well.
- Allows to access evidence-based tools that providers can use to sort and make decisions about a patient’s care and health.
- Flawless coordination between everyone in the healthcare ecosystem can be achieved easily.
- EHRs can be easily accessed by everyone involved in the care process of the patient.
Why EHR Should Be Implemented by the Adult Day Care Centers?
Aging is one of the most challenging phases and needs a lot of care and attention. Adult Day Care Centers are playing a major role in this. Most of the centers are still not digitized and manage all the records on papers. In this era where the world is growing digitally, and everyone is dependent on technology it’s very hard to maintain each and every day health and medical routine and all the records manually. EHR is the best possible solution for the Adult Day Care Centers:-
- Easy to handle management with every single record being available digitally.
- A proper track-records of the medical history of every participant.
- Information, medical records, and history can effortlessly move along with the patient to another hospital, nursing home, specialist, or even state/country.
- It would decrease the rate of duplicate tests, medication etc. for the patient by providing track-records.
- The record can be accessed by any and every department.
- No paper work for any departments which would lead to zero chances for any medical or health record to be missed.
- Easy access by the patients and their caregiver as well.
Best way to achieve EHR
There are three major steps involved to achieve and implement EHR, let’s have a look:-
STEP 1 is Need Assessment: First step in the EHR selection and implementation process is the ‘Need Assessment’- to help you visibly define what you need in an EHR. There are two other steps to be followed as well.
STEP 2 is Readiness Assessment: It looks at both your internal and external environment. It can reveal a whole lot of thing which would help you take the decision.
STEP 3 is Work Flow Analysis: This step should begin concurrently with the Readiness Assessment which involves reviewing how your practice completes the work associated with patient encounter and all the related components.
And once the above-mentioned steps are taken then creating your road map for selecting and implementing a system is what you would require doing.
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