Health Care : Patient and Medical Record

The Health Care Industry is centered around the services that can be offered to a Patient. Patients and their Health Records offer tremendous insight into Medical Histories and is of great interest to many Stakeholders.

A Patient is a person in need of Medical attention. The Medical attention could be care and treatment.

The outcome of the Medical attention is :-

1. a Medical Record
2. a Bill for the offered Services.

The Medical Record is a documentation of :-

1. Observations made by the attending Medical Professional.
2. Recommended Scans to study the problem further.
3. Recommended care / Treatment.

A collection of Medical Records is the Medical History of the patient. However, the term "Medical Record" is also used interchangeably to include the Medical History ( Health Record ) of the patient.

An Electronic Medical Record ( EMR ) is a Medical Record in digital format. An EMR contains patient information from a single Health Care Provider ( a Doctor, a Hospital, etc. ).

An Electronic Health Record ( EHR ) contains patient information from multiple Health Care Provider ( Doctors, Hospitals, etc. ). Hence, an EHR can be considered as a collection of EMRs ( this is my view of EMR and EHR ).

Hence, a Health Care Provider contributes vital information about a Patient in the form of an EMR. The EMR in turn forms a vital component of a Patient's EHR.