The HealthITBlog

EMR or EHR, what’s the difference

I hear the terms EMR (Electronic Medical Record) and EHR (Electronic Health Record) bandied about interchangeably.
So what is the difference.
Based on some reading I offer the following:

EMR – An electronic record of a person’s health related information that is gathered and managed from a single organization
EHR- An electronic record of a person’s health related information that is gathered and managed from a many organizations.

So my EMR is generated by my family physician and his/her nurse, but my EHR includes medical information from visits to specialists as well, perhaps even dentists and podiatrists. An EHR vendor thus needs to provide interfaces that allow data to be easily interchanged. In this regard I am starting to read about LOINC and HL7, though I understand the latter to be somewhat outdated.

September 25, 2009 Posted by jgershater | Health Information Technology | EHR, EMR, HL7, LOINC | 10 Comments