Editor’s Note: Sarah is the Project Manager, Epic Implementation for Woodlawn Health
An Electronic Medical Record (EMR) is a digital record of an individual patient’s healthcare information. The record may include provider notes from clinic visits, hospital visits, medication lists, lab and radiology results, scheduling information, and more. Developing and implementing a comprehensive EMR is expensive and time-consuming, so why do healthcare organizations invest so much in EMRs?
Comprehensive Electronic Medical Records support patient safety with tools like bar-code scanning for medication administration. Comprehensive EMRs promote clinical excellence by automating reminders and alerts. An example of this is alerting a clinician of a patient’s allergy before a medication is ordered. EMRs improve patient and clinician experience by providing access to patient information in efficient and reliable ways. An example of this is being able to see clinical information from hospital visits and clinic visits in the same system. EMRs reduce or eliminate issues with legibility due to handwriting that may be hard to read. Clinical best practices can be built into EMRs to provide clinicians with the choices for care that are likely most applicable to a specific patient based on information already in the EMR.
Woodlawn Health’s commitment to a comprehensive EMR is taking a big step forward in June 2025. The Epic EMR will be implemented for both the hospital and clinic setting, and we expect the benefits gained will further highlight the excellent care our clinicians provide. Even though transitioning to a new EMR will take extra time and effort, the benefits for patient safety and experience will pay off.
