Electronic Medical Records Have Developed to Become

Electronic medical records have developed to become an important component of today's health care systems because they lie at the center of computerized health information systems. Actually, the lack of electronic medical systems contributes to numerous difficulties in effective integration of modern technologies like decision support systems into regular clinical workflow. The development of electronic medical records have been fueled by the focus on multi-discipline computerized medical record, paperless, multi-provider, interoperable, and multi-specialty systems by various politicians, health professionals, researchers, and administrators. The development of such a system has been the focus of these stakeholders in the past two decades and has recently become a reality across several countries (Haupt, 2011). The development of electronic medical records emerged from their possibility to make health care safer, better, and more efficient

Electronic medical records have been developed because of the expectation of physicians to document their encounters with patients to ensure that critical information for decision-making and actions are recorded. The documentation of patient encounters is also critical for archival purposes, especially in situations of disputes. In the previous years, physicians largely resented the task of documentation to a great extent because it detracted them from their basic function of taking care of patients ("History of EMR," n.d.). As these systems have been developed to aid in documentation of physician-patient encounters, EMR have significantly contributed to the delivery of efficient care services.

Nonetheless, physicians are required to be able to document findings and access information quickly in the electronic medical records. This is an important task because patient encounters tend to last for approximately 10 minutes and usually 25% of the time is used in documentation. As a result, physicians should be able to record the patient encounters in about 2 minutes. Physicians need systems with lower cost to purchase and maintain, systems that are highly reliable, always accessible, easy to support, and safeguarded from loss of information. Electronic medical records are systems that enhance the delivery of efficient care services because they consist of various modules. Some of the critical modules in the systems include patient registration, scheduling, documentation of patient encounters, managing documents, writing prescriptions, clinical decision support and billing, and requisitioning.

As an important technological advancement, electronic medical records have had huge impacts on the health care industry and across many healthcare facilities

. These systems provide health care professionals unlimited and unexpected access to every aspect of a patient's health history that is quite beneficial during the patient's hospital stay. This is largely because electronic medical records are transforming the efficiency and accuracy of health care services ("The Impact of Electronic Medical Records," n.d.).

Medical practitioners using these systems have access to patient information at their fingertips through the handheld electronic devices or computers. Consequently, electronic medical records promote instant availability of the health history and information of a patient. These practitioners can make changes to the patient's records that take effect instantly such as changes in prescriptions and addition to the patient's regimen. However, the main impact of these systems on health care facilities and organizations is that they facilitate faster health care decisions on the physician's part and improved implementation of care decisions by the organization's support staff. Furthermore, electronic medical records contribute to higher accuracy in patient's prescriptions and treatments.