POTTSTOWN PA – Pottstown Family Care, the group of primary care physicians’ offices operated in Sanatoga, Limerick, Boyertown, Douglassville, and North Coventry PA by Pottstown Memorial Medical Center, 1600 E. High St., Pottstown, has replaced its voluminous archive of patients’ cumbersome paper records with a more efficient electronic medical record system, the hospital announced Feb. 4 (2011).
Electronic medical records have arrived at the offices of Pottstown Family Practice in Sanatoga and other locations
After a 12-week preparation and training period, Pottstown Family Care began using the electronic system last fall. With electronic records, health care providers can access complete, current patient information in an instant, according to Elizabeth Gilroy, PMMC director of outpatient family practices.
When nurses first evaluate a patient, they take laptop computers into the exam room and use them to record the patient’s vital signs, Gilroy said. When a doctor treats the patient, they also use a laptop to access those vital signs and quickly get a complete picture of the patient’s situation.
Computer screens seen by the medical staff are formatted for many different situations; some for ill or older patients, others for a child’s annual check-up, and still others for patients with specific illnesses. A complete list of a patient medications also is displayed onscreen.
Besides enhanced efficiency, a chief advantage of electronic records is that caregivers can view patient records any time, even remotely. Physicians with the practice can gain access to patient records in the system via the Internet. “That isn’t possible with paper records stored in a doctor’s office,” Gilroy noted.
The system tracks all information generated about a patient, from phone calls from outside physicians to requests for prescription refills.
Photo from DucknetWeb
Will we EVER learn?
Where there are computers, there is NO privacy.
How long until some clever villian figures out a way to use this information for an evil purpose?