Electronic Medical Records – Behind the Screen

Although paper medical records still exist, more and more clinics, offices and hospitals are moving to electronic records.  These electronic records in some cases are nothing more than digitized versions of what would normally appear in a patient’s paper chart.  In other cases, information from monitors such as blood pressure monitors or heart monitors may be recorded digitally and stored centrally in a database for the institution.   The following article discusses some of the issues associated with electronic medical records, including the use of audit trails and access logs to understand who has reviewed a record, and if changes were made to the record.