What is an EMR and What Does it Mean for Patients?
Most people have what's called an EMR, or electronic medical record, but how many of us know what EMRs really are? Dr. Jonathan Lee discusses EMRs and the benefits they can provide for patients.
Featuring:
Jonathan Lee, M.D.
Dr. Jonathan Lee was a software engineer before becoming a pediatrician. He went to medical school at the University of Oklahoma, then completed his residency at Seattle Children's Hospital, where he took care of the sickest children in the region. He enjoys partnering with families to provide the best care for a child's physical, mental, and spiritual well being. Transcription:
Announcer: With a relentless focus on excellence in healthcare, Pullman Regional Hospital presents The Health Podcast.
Deborah Howell: So most people walking around have what's called an EMR, which is short for electronic medical record, but do most of us know what EMRs really are and what benefit they provide us as patients? To talk about electronic medical records and what they mean for patients, today, we'd like to welcome Dr. Jonathan Lee, a pediatrician at Palouse Pediatrics. Hello, Dr. Lee. Welcome!
Dr. Jonathan Lee: Hi. Thank you so much for having me, Deborah.
Deborah Howell: What a pleasure. So let's get right into it. An EMR is an electronic medical record. Could you give us a brief description of what that is?
Dr. Jonathan Lee: Of course. So an EMR or an electronic medical record, it's simply a digital way of storing patient information. That can be as straightforward as a file for every patient in your practice that describes who they are and a note that details every encounter they've had with their doctor. You know, providers have always had patient records like this to help us remember important details about our patients and to share information with others. On the other hand, an EMR system can also be a good deal more than that. Ideally, everyone in the hospital would have a single platform that allows them to do everything they need to care for a patient. That would be simple tasks, maybe like recording a patient encounter, but also sending prescriptions for medicines, ordering labs and x-rays and seeing those results, maybe scheduling a surgery or followup visit and then communicating with everyone involved in the patient's care, and that might span, you know, multiple offices or hospitals and billing insurance at the end. And then on top of that, you could have analytics and reporting and data discovery. You know, your EMR could come up with innovative ways to give providers more information so they can actually improve their care. Today's EMR, they lie somewhere in that spectrum.
Deborah Howell: Okay. And now you completed your residency as I understand at Seattle Children's. What was your experience like utilizing their EMR?
Dr. Jonathan Lee: I was really fortunate to be part of such an amazing hospital, I think. Seattle Children's is one of the top tertiary referral centers for pediatric care in the entire Pacific Northwest region. So if you can imagine, we had patients flying in from as far as Alaska. And so we needed an efficient way to store and recall and organize patient information.
We had an EMR system called Cerner, which as a resident doctor there, I spent hours each day interacting with it, you know, putting in orders and keeping my clinical notes. We also worked with the University of Washington and they had a development team dedicated to customizing the system so we could effectively perform all the functions we needed.
In my outpatient clinic, so outside of the hospital, we use a different system called Epic and that performed a lot of the same functions, but unfortunately, unable to communicate with Cerner, which we had in the hospital. When I finished my residency though, Seattle Children's was transitioning to using Epic hospital-wide and clinic-wide as their single EMR system. And actually in Washington, I think around 75% of hospitals now are in Epic. And so it made sense for Children's to have a system that connected and communicated with other hospitals.
Deborah Howell: How does a patient access their own EMR?
Dr. Jonathan Lee: Right. And so we are hoping, and this is all going to be implementation details, it depends on the hospital system, but having everything electronic means that you should be able to access online. And we would imagine one day that our patients here can log into a portal just like you would for anything else you do online right now. They can access it online. You can see all of your own records and medication lists and doctor's visits and upcoming visits and request a conversation with your doctor. So all of those things become available at your fingertips.
Deborah Howell: So Dr. Lee, why our EMRs important for physicians to have and use? And what benefit do they provide patients?
Dr. Jonathan Lee: So an EMR system is a daily tool that I use as a doctor to organize each of my patients' information and to manage their care. So if you're going to have a tool in your hand that you use a hundred or a thousand times a day, you can imagine how important it is for it to just to work. And it affects the quality of care I can provide and the timeliness of being able to provide that care.
You asked about what does it provide for a patient from their perspective, I think the difference for your doctor using a good EMR versus just storing your information in a file folder or by handwritten notes, that's to me pretty huge.
So for one, it dictates accessibility that you can have to your own health information. All of us are, you know, used to logging in online with our bank or whatever, and just seeing all the parts of our lives and being able to see our history. But it'd be great to be able to log in and get a list of the medicines that you're supposed to be taking or see all your doctor's visits.
Also, I think it makes a difference for having health records available to the people who need them. It's like, if you're on vacation and you end up in the emergency room, that doctor, it would be amazing for them to be able to pull all of your relevant health history without finding the right person on the phone in your office.
Deborah Howell: I know for me personally, whenever I go to a new doctor for something, they say, "List all the surgeries in your past" and I can't remember, I'm an athlete, I've had so many surgeries, you know?
Dr. Jonathan Lee: That's right. Yeah.
Deborah Howell: If I could just pull that up, "Oh yeah. My knee thing was in 2007 and, you know, my ankle thing was in another year," that would be very useful.
Dr. Jonathan Lee: Yeah. And having that electronically makes that possible, like you can't get that from paper charts. And that was one of the major innovations the electronic medical records is being able to share data and have it searchable.
You know, in the practice that I started off with right after residency, we used paper records and it was, efficient. But it's efficient because no one can read anything that you're writing you. You can't, your colleagues can't, your patients can't. So it's definitely a step forward.
Deborah Howell: Right. So Pullman Regional right now is currently raising funds to implement an updated EMR for the hospital. What excites you about this?
Dr. Jonathan Lee: Yeah. So Pullman Regional Hospital very recently made the decision to transition their various EMR systems in use across all hospitals and clinics to a single system, and that's going to be Epic. So that's the same EMR system that I talked about earlier that Seattle Children's recently transitioned to. And this is the fruit of five years of work that I'm fortunate enough to be joining at the tail end. It's still going to be this enormous multi-year undertaking at this point, but I'm so excited that we're taking this step. It's going to give the practices in our network a chance to, I think, take patient care to the next level, to like you're saying, have those records accessible to everyone who needs them, to have them accessible for our patients and in a way that can be consumed easily.
I want to say that we're incredibly lucky to have the Pullman Regional Hospital Foundation leading our fundraising effort. Because they've been amazing advocates every step of the way. They also have found a way to bring the entire community here in the Palouse into being part of the effort. So I'm very excited about this effort.
Deborah Howell: Well, is there anything else you'd like to add to our conversation today as we move forward? And I wish you the best of luck with the fundraising effort by the way.
Dr. Jonathan Lee: Oh, I really appreciate that. I think that EMR systems, they don't always get the spotlight that they deserve. But they are a crucial piece of infrastructure for any modern medical practice. And when the right ones in place, it means that doctors can focus on taking care of patients instead of struggling with the computer and patients can trust that they're getting the best possible care. And that's what we're aiming for here at Pullman Regional.
Deborah Howell: Oh, it sounds like a wonderful world. Well, Dr. Lee, we so appreciate your time and everything you do to help our patients. Thanks so much for being with us today.
Dr. Jonathan Lee: Thank you so much for having me.
Deborah Howell: And you can learn more about this subject, providers and services at Pullman Regional Hospital online at pullmanregional.org/howtohelp/foundation/annualgivingfunddrive. This has been The Health Podcast from Pullman Regional. I'm your host, Deborah Howell. Thanks for listening and have yourself a terrific day.
Announcer: With a relentless focus on excellence in healthcare, Pullman Regional Hospital presents The Health Podcast.
Deborah Howell: So most people walking around have what's called an EMR, which is short for electronic medical record, but do most of us know what EMRs really are and what benefit they provide us as patients? To talk about electronic medical records and what they mean for patients, today, we'd like to welcome Dr. Jonathan Lee, a pediatrician at Palouse Pediatrics. Hello, Dr. Lee. Welcome!
Dr. Jonathan Lee: Hi. Thank you so much for having me, Deborah.
Deborah Howell: What a pleasure. So let's get right into it. An EMR is an electronic medical record. Could you give us a brief description of what that is?
Dr. Jonathan Lee: Of course. So an EMR or an electronic medical record, it's simply a digital way of storing patient information. That can be as straightforward as a file for every patient in your practice that describes who they are and a note that details every encounter they've had with their doctor. You know, providers have always had patient records like this to help us remember important details about our patients and to share information with others. On the other hand, an EMR system can also be a good deal more than that. Ideally, everyone in the hospital would have a single platform that allows them to do everything they need to care for a patient. That would be simple tasks, maybe like recording a patient encounter, but also sending prescriptions for medicines, ordering labs and x-rays and seeing those results, maybe scheduling a surgery or followup visit and then communicating with everyone involved in the patient's care, and that might span, you know, multiple offices or hospitals and billing insurance at the end. And then on top of that, you could have analytics and reporting and data discovery. You know, your EMR could come up with innovative ways to give providers more information so they can actually improve their care. Today's EMR, they lie somewhere in that spectrum.
Deborah Howell: Okay. And now you completed your residency as I understand at Seattle Children's. What was your experience like utilizing their EMR?
Dr. Jonathan Lee: I was really fortunate to be part of such an amazing hospital, I think. Seattle Children's is one of the top tertiary referral centers for pediatric care in the entire Pacific Northwest region. So if you can imagine, we had patients flying in from as far as Alaska. And so we needed an efficient way to store and recall and organize patient information.
We had an EMR system called Cerner, which as a resident doctor there, I spent hours each day interacting with it, you know, putting in orders and keeping my clinical notes. We also worked with the University of Washington and they had a development team dedicated to customizing the system so we could effectively perform all the functions we needed.
In my outpatient clinic, so outside of the hospital, we use a different system called Epic and that performed a lot of the same functions, but unfortunately, unable to communicate with Cerner, which we had in the hospital. When I finished my residency though, Seattle Children's was transitioning to using Epic hospital-wide and clinic-wide as their single EMR system. And actually in Washington, I think around 75% of hospitals now are in Epic. And so it made sense for Children's to have a system that connected and communicated with other hospitals.
Deborah Howell: How does a patient access their own EMR?
Dr. Jonathan Lee: Right. And so we are hoping, and this is all going to be implementation details, it depends on the hospital system, but having everything electronic means that you should be able to access online. And we would imagine one day that our patients here can log into a portal just like you would for anything else you do online right now. They can access it online. You can see all of your own records and medication lists and doctor's visits and upcoming visits and request a conversation with your doctor. So all of those things become available at your fingertips.
Deborah Howell: So Dr. Lee, why our EMRs important for physicians to have and use? And what benefit do they provide patients?
Dr. Jonathan Lee: So an EMR system is a daily tool that I use as a doctor to organize each of my patients' information and to manage their care. So if you're going to have a tool in your hand that you use a hundred or a thousand times a day, you can imagine how important it is for it to just to work. And it affects the quality of care I can provide and the timeliness of being able to provide that care.
You asked about what does it provide for a patient from their perspective, I think the difference for your doctor using a good EMR versus just storing your information in a file folder or by handwritten notes, that's to me pretty huge.
So for one, it dictates accessibility that you can have to your own health information. All of us are, you know, used to logging in online with our bank or whatever, and just seeing all the parts of our lives and being able to see our history. But it'd be great to be able to log in and get a list of the medicines that you're supposed to be taking or see all your doctor's visits.
Also, I think it makes a difference for having health records available to the people who need them. It's like, if you're on vacation and you end up in the emergency room, that doctor, it would be amazing for them to be able to pull all of your relevant health history without finding the right person on the phone in your office.
Deborah Howell: I know for me personally, whenever I go to a new doctor for something, they say, "List all the surgeries in your past" and I can't remember, I'm an athlete, I've had so many surgeries, you know?
Dr. Jonathan Lee: That's right. Yeah.
Deborah Howell: If I could just pull that up, "Oh yeah. My knee thing was in 2007 and, you know, my ankle thing was in another year," that would be very useful.
Dr. Jonathan Lee: Yeah. And having that electronically makes that possible, like you can't get that from paper charts. And that was one of the major innovations the electronic medical records is being able to share data and have it searchable.
You know, in the practice that I started off with right after residency, we used paper records and it was, efficient. But it's efficient because no one can read anything that you're writing you. You can't, your colleagues can't, your patients can't. So it's definitely a step forward.
Deborah Howell: Right. So Pullman Regional right now is currently raising funds to implement an updated EMR for the hospital. What excites you about this?
Dr. Jonathan Lee: Yeah. So Pullman Regional Hospital very recently made the decision to transition their various EMR systems in use across all hospitals and clinics to a single system, and that's going to be Epic. So that's the same EMR system that I talked about earlier that Seattle Children's recently transitioned to. And this is the fruit of five years of work that I'm fortunate enough to be joining at the tail end. It's still going to be this enormous multi-year undertaking at this point, but I'm so excited that we're taking this step. It's going to give the practices in our network a chance to, I think, take patient care to the next level, to like you're saying, have those records accessible to everyone who needs them, to have them accessible for our patients and in a way that can be consumed easily.
I want to say that we're incredibly lucky to have the Pullman Regional Hospital Foundation leading our fundraising effort. Because they've been amazing advocates every step of the way. They also have found a way to bring the entire community here in the Palouse into being part of the effort. So I'm very excited about this effort.
Deborah Howell: Well, is there anything else you'd like to add to our conversation today as we move forward? And I wish you the best of luck with the fundraising effort by the way.
Dr. Jonathan Lee: Oh, I really appreciate that. I think that EMR systems, they don't always get the spotlight that they deserve. But they are a crucial piece of infrastructure for any modern medical practice. And when the right ones in place, it means that doctors can focus on taking care of patients instead of struggling with the computer and patients can trust that they're getting the best possible care. And that's what we're aiming for here at Pullman Regional.
Deborah Howell: Oh, it sounds like a wonderful world. Well, Dr. Lee, we so appreciate your time and everything you do to help our patients. Thanks so much for being with us today.
Dr. Jonathan Lee: Thank you so much for having me.
Deborah Howell: And you can learn more about this subject, providers and services at Pullman Regional Hospital online at pullmanregional.org/howtohelp/foundation/annualgivingfunddrive. This has been The Health Podcast from Pullman Regional. I'm your host, Deborah Howell. Thanks for listening and have yourself a terrific day.