Remember when the wall behind the doctor’s office receptionist was lined with paper charts? Yours was filed there with everyone else’s medical records until pulled for your visit to your physician. Your doctor’s notes and the reports from other consulting physicians were all in that chart. It was a very different way of practicing medicine. Your doctor was like an orchestra conductor, interfacing with specialists on your behalf. If you went to the hospital, your primary doctor rounded on you every day and coordinated your care with other doctors and hospital staff. Someone who “knew� you was fronting for you. Enter the digital age and the advent of the EMR…Electronic Medical Record! Things have changed! You need a new understanding of your medical “chart.� According to the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine, “EMR stands for Electronic Medical Record, which are the digital equivalent of paper records, or charts at a clinician’s office. EMRs typically contain general information such as treatment and medical history about a patient as it is collected by the individual medical practice.� It is a digital record of all your health information. “…Health information can be created and managed by authorized providers in a digital format capable of being shared with other providers across more than one health care organization. EHRs are built to share information with other health care providers and organizations—such as laboratories, specialists, medical imaging facilities, pharmacies, emergency facilities, and school and workplace clinics—so they contain information from all clinicians involved in a patient’s care,� according to HealthIT.gov. PROS OF EMR Electronic medical records give quick, universal access to providers from any point of care connected to the internet. There is definitely an enhanced quality of care based on the availability of medical information about the patient. All diagnoses, treatments and medications are at the fingertips of the attending medical providers, who can make faster diagnoses and more efficient treatment plans. According to Registerednursing.com, “Computerized physician ordering has helped reduce errors related to misinterpreted handwriting and transcription errors. EMRs often have flags or hard stops if an order is entered incorrectly (i.e., the wrong dose ordered, or a med ordered that is listed as an allergy). Electronic medication records assist staff in correct medication administration. In hospitals, barcode scanning, for example, helps correctly identify the right patient, right time, and the right med. Additionally, abnormal results are flagged to prevent them from being overlooked.� Also, patients do not get double prescriptions, and patients cannot doctor shop and get multiple narcotic prescriptions. Accessibility and privacy are considered other benefits of electronic medical records. Paper records are handled by a lot of people setting them up, transporting them to the exam rooms, sending them out to other providers, losing or destroying or abandoning charts to some warehouse when a practice downsizes or closes. (Note: You are, by law, not required to put your social security number or driver’s license number on the initial sign-in sheet, and I recommend you do not!) Another cool feature is that you can see who has accessed your medical record and anyone who signs into them is recorded. Finally, patients have access through their “MyChart-type� Patient Portals to their medical records, alerts to upcoming appointments, test results that have abnormal results flagged and direct message access to their physician.