Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

Question: I’ve seen the acronyms EMR and EHR used interchangeably, but our IT manager told me they are not the same. Can you explain how they differ and how to identify one from the other?

Montana Subscriber

Answer: Your IT manager is correct — an electronic medical record (EMR) and an electronic health record (EHR) may sound similar, but they are very different and shouldn’t be confused.

An EMR is just an electronic version of a patient’s chart. Furthermore, an EMR is for in-practice use only and is not traditionally shared with other healthcare providers. The patient data in the EMR is for the providers in your practice to use primarily for care and treatment. Essentially, the EMR is a history of the diagnosis and treatment performed exclusively by your practice. Patients have limited access to this kind of digital chart.

An EHR is much more involved and covers a patient’s healthcare journey across different spectrums and providers. It acts as a database of sorts, housing all the health information a patient has amassed and is an amalgam of all the digital records. An EHR can be shared with other healthcare providers in real time, and changes can be made by the various providers.

Additionally, patients can go in and look at the information in an EHR — and amend or correct data. EHRs are used for communication, diagnoses, and treatment, across practices, specialists, hospitals, and facilities.