13 Things to Know about the Evolution of EHR

Gone are the long haul days when the healthcare professionals used to be dependent on a stack of papers to maintain the patient’s records. Electronic Health Records or EHR system has transformed the work processes of the healthcare industry and streamlined the medical practice system to a large extent. Let’s skim over some of the interesting facts about the evolution of this extraordinary system.

1. A team of Lockheed Corporation and El Camino Hospital developed an electronic system in the mid-1960’s which was then called clinical information system. After years of experiments and testing, this system first went live in 1973.
2. According to the National Institutes of Health, the first clinic to use this system is The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, New York.
3. In 1970’s the system was renamed as Computerized Patient Record (CPR) and was actively used in about 75 hospitals for storage and retrieval of medical documents.
4. According to the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania, the Electronic Medical System (EMR) used to be very expensive in 1970’s and was only used by government hospitals.
5. According to the American Medical Association, in the 1970’s EHR was used by the federal government in the Department of Veteran Affairs and the Department of Defense, which later on was named VistA.
6. VistA was considered to be the most-used EHR in the country where 65% of all US trained physicians completed clinical electives at the Veterans Health Administration.
7. 1980’s witnessed an increase in automation of healthcare systems due to the decrease in the price of personal computers.
8. After scrutinizing the cumbersome use of paper health records, The Institute of Medicine cited EHR adoption as one of the key factors for improving patient care in 1991.
9. According to the ONC, the Institute of Medicine envisioned in 1991 that all physicians would use computers by 2000. Later on, it was found out that only 18% of physicians were using EHR system in 2001.
10. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the use of EHR saw a steep increase from 34.8% in 2007 to 71% in 2012.
11. Now 2 out of 3 people would consider a physician who has access to the medical records through a secure internet connection.
12. More than 80% Americans who have access to their health records in EHR uses it.
13. Due to the easy accessibility to their health records through EHR, people believe they can keep track of their health better.

Sources: Health IT, For the record Mag

Also read: 15 latest statistics on EHR to prove its Importance

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