If you are contemplating the purchase of an Electronic Health Record (EHR) system, it is important that you and/or your physicians take time to review each system's medical record templates.

With the evolution of electronic health records (EHRs), physician practices are searching for that "tickler file" solution.

All physician and caregiver offices should be migrating to an all-electronic prescription system. If physicians who use EHRs are not e-prescribing, prescriptions should be captured by scanning the paper prescription into the EHR or fully documenting the name, dose, quantity, instructions, and refill amount.  

It is common knowledge in the health care industry that medication errors are a large percentage of preventable harm to patients. As noted below, even the "new" world of electronic prescribing cannot prevent some medication errors. 

As doctors continue to implement electronic medical records, it is important to ensure that a breach of privacy does not occur. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) encourages practices to safeguard medical records with passwords, encryption, business associate agreements, staff in-services, and policies and procedures.