Electronic health record (EHR)

Why it matters

For a hospital or health system, the EHR is the foundation that other digital services depend on. Orders, results, medicines, referrals and national reporting all draw on the same record, so its quality sets the quality of everything built on it. ISO/TR 20514 defines the EHR as a repository of information about the health of a subject of care, in computer processable form, stored and transmitted securely and accessible by multiple authorised users [1].

Key points

• An EHR is designed to be shared across providers, whereas an electronic medical record (EMR) is the digital chart of one practice [2].
• The Institute of Medicine described core EHR functions: health information and data, results management, order management, decision support, electronic communication, patient support, administrative processes and reporting [3].
• National digital health strategies increasingly treat interoperable, standards based records as core infrastructure rather than a departmental purchase.
• Its value depends on structured data, coded terminologies and exchange standards such as FHIR.

In Moana

The Moana EHR holds one patient record shared across the role based workspaces of MOANA Desktop, MOANA Mobile and the Patient Portal, with laboratory, pharmacy and imaging results returned to the same chart.

Sources

1. Health informatics: electronic health record definition, scope and context (ISO/TR 20514), International Organization for Standardization, listed by the Australian Digital Health Agency, 2005
2. EMR vs EHR: what is the difference?, Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, 2011
3. US Institute publishes core capabilities for EHRs, Digital Health, 2003