Electronic Health Records (EHRs) are digital representations of a patient’s medical history and associated healthcare data. Medical facilities store these records on secure local servers, or cloud-based systems store them, allowing authorised healthcare providers remote access. This method of storage streamlines both the management and retrieval of patient information, making it more efficient for clinicians and support staff to deliver care.
EHRs combine information from a person’s electronic patient records (EPRs), such as their medical history and treatment, with other key details, including:
As the NHS and healthcare organisations across the UK start their digital transformation, electronic health records offer many benefits.
With the seamless integration of other healthcare systems, such as patient flow, patient management, medication management, etc., communication and collaboration between healthcare professionals and departments become quicker and easier. This saves valuable time for clinicians, freeing them up to better focus on patient care rather than document admin.
Cloud-based electronic health records can be invaluable to security and effective data protection. Paper documents are more vulnerable to unauthorised access, tampering, theft, and environmental damage. Digitising these records allows for more robust security measures to be implemented to protect patient data. These include password protection, role-based access, and access monitoring to ensure access to the information is always controlled.
EHRs are also effective in reducing human mistakes within the healthcare sector. This is because remote storage allows a greater range of access for staff, so there is less duplication of records. All relevant staff members can operate from one main file relating to the patient receiving care, improving the patient experience, treatment accuracy and minimising the risk of errors.
Yes, in 2023, the UK government issued a mandate that 95% of NHS trusts should be using electronic health records by March 2025. Various factors and delays resulted in this goal not being achieved, but with 91% of trusts having implemented EHR systems so far, full digitisation is underway.
Electronic health records have become a required system in the UK because of the benefits they provide to professionals and patients. However, there are a few challenges to be aware of when implementing EHRs.
To find out more about the different types of EHRs, check out our guide covering the topic.