What is an electronic patient record management system?
In a world where healthcare systems are under more and more pressure each year thanks to better living and increased lifespans, clinicians need all the help they can get to be more efficient and effective with their time to keep a high standard of care without burning themselves out.
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Written by Liam Sheasby
What is an electronic patient record?
An electronic patient record (EPR) is a digital document. It is a computer-based log of a patient’s personal information, contact details, and their medical history. This history details all illnesses and complaints, as well as notes from appointments, medication or treatments prescribed, and any active care plan.
Electronic patient records offer many advantages to healthcare organisations, whether they are publicly funded like the NHS or private providers.
Healthcare professionals are seeing a quality-of-life improvement where electronic patient record software is making note taking easier, quicker, more accurate, and able to be shared with other colleagues, departments or organisations.
What is a patient record management system?
A patient record management system is a collection of clinical information. Electronic patient records are typically saved to a hard drive in one central location, and from there the server shares access to healthcare professionals.
Digital systems offer a fully integrated solution for healthcare companies so they can properly communicate patient details across primary care (hospitals and surgeries) or secondary care (child, community, and mental health) but they also allow healthcare professionals to contribute to the record’s upkeep and use the most accurate information as part of a patient’s assessment and treatment.
What is an EPR system?
An EPR system is simply a computer-based record management system for patient medical records, all held at one central point which makes it easy to maintain and keep as accurate as possible.
Electronic patient records (EPR) are the best way to handle patient information in this modern age. For healthcare trusts and providers that still use written records and charts, an electronic patient record (EPR) management system has the potential to help improve outcomes for patients in your care and to create significant cost savings across your healthcare services.
How do electronic patient records work?
By connecting your processes and systems, EPR can make the administration of care highly efficient. Our EPR solution combines several apps, modules, portals and mobile solutions in a way that best connects secondary care, GP and social care systems.
It means that practitioners at every stage of the care-giving process can see details of previous treatment without delay.
Information is quick and simple to access when required. This reduces the training required to use it and allays any fears about making mistakes with new technology.
As a result, care quality improves. Patient records are more accurate and up to date, meaning greater clinical safety and a better patient experience.
Our integrated EPR software solution has been designed to support NHS trusts in achieving the targets detailed in the NHS Long-Term Plan, which aims to accelerate the redesign of patient care to future-proof the NHS for the decade ahead.
EPR has the scope to oversee both administrative and clinical processes, and you can tailor it to your specific needs.
Our integrated EPR software solution has been designed to support NHS trusts in achieving the targets detailed in the NHS Long-Term Plan, which aims to accelerate the redesign of patient care to future-proof the NHS for the decade ahead. EPR has the scope to oversee both administrative and clinical processes, and you can tailor it to your specific needs.
Find out more about our EPR system
How do electronic patient records improve care?
Electronic health records have numerous benefits for healthcare trusts and providers. Information is quick and simple to access when required, which helps to enhance care quality, clinical safety, and patient experience. By connecting your processes and systems, EPR can make the administration of care highly efficient.
With one centralised electronic patient record, you can integrate data from other public sector systems for a simple, efficient overview of a person’s medical records. This data can be accessed and updated in real-time from a laptop, tablet or smartphone via a secure browser or app connection.
The benefits of electronic patient records for the NHS mainly focus on savings: of money and of time. By using an electronic patient record system, clinicians and practitioners can save vital time which means more availability to interact with patients. They also have better data management, from which they can make better clinical decisions. Better decisions mean better care and ultimately better results.
EPR software also helps with paperwork. A trust or healthcare organisation doesn’t need to buy as much paper, whether for taking patient notes or printing letters and prescriptions, and no longer needing to take observations on paper could save a Trust up to £650,000 per year.
For staff it is also reducing the stress or fatigue that can come from extended periods spent completing repetitive tasks.
Our EPR solution combines several apps, modules, portals and mobile solutions in a way that best connects secondary care, GP and social care systems. It means that practitioners at every stage of the care-giving process can see details of previous treatment without delay.
How long do you keep patient medical records?
Patient medical records are kept for a variety of different lengths of time depending on which part of the UK a patient is based. Devolved healthcare in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland means there are few points where records are identical.
GP records in England, Wales and Northern Ireland must be kept for 10 years after a patient’s death, whereas in Scotland this is 3 years for paper records and in perpetuity for digital records.
The British Medical Association (BMA) lists out in detail how exactly the NHS splits out the record keeping durations for maternity care, children and young people, mental health, and any other care provisions.
EPR System NHS
The NHS uses EPR systems to create a longitudinal record; one centralised record that everyone, nationally, can operate from – regardless of Trust, department, or specialty.
This is to ensure clinicians are all working from the same information when they are making care decisions, but also it allows for greater accuracy of information. With one version of a patient’s record there’s no duplication, no lost information. The full picture is present at any time.
It is a top priority of NHS England to implement these electronic patient record systems as part of the ongoing NHS digitisation. The NHS Digital Capabilities Framework is the strategy being used for the implementation of software solutions, and NHS EPR systems are one of the Core capabilities.
In order to achieve this implementation, NHS Trusts are pursuing interoperable solutions so that the healthcare software they are investing in can integrate with their existing system (typically via a Trust Integration Engine) and communicate with other solutions via NHS-approved APIs like HL7.
The past decade or more has seen the introduction of the NHS minimum digital foundations. Now NHS England is moving on to the next stage of digital evolution: developing a national ecosystem of healthcare that can provide continual joined-up care at an excellent standard nationwide.
Benefits of using a patient record management system
Digitally record and manage clinical and care observations
- eObservations software provides nurses with the tools to digitally record and manage clinical and care observations within healthcare and social care settings.
- It helps you to sustain high quality and safe care on inpatient wards, and throughout your community and mental health care services.
Streamlines communications
- EPR software also streamlines the communication and results reporting between trusts and local pathology or radiology services.
- Order Communications software enables you to communicate with your local pathology and radiology services digitally, and to replace any historical paper-based communication methods.
- It provides a way to fast-track requests and manage pathology and radiology results, safely and efficiently.
Reduced risk of incorrect medication
- EPR also makes prescriptions safer by promoting the availability of correct information.
- Electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration - ePMA software helps to ensure that patients receive the correct medication at the right time.
- By managing medications and prescriptions digitally you reduce the risk of prescribing incorrect medications.
Supports mental wellbeing
- Further applications, such as the Mood Diary App, help to support a person’s mental wellbeing.
- Mood Diary gives a person access to their Safety Plan and emergency contacts, whilst letting a clinician gain a real-time view of their mood and state of mind, and giving them the opportunity to make an earlier intervention.
Find out more about our EPR systems
