App development

August 31, 2022

How to Create an EMR/EHR Software in 2022: The Ultimate Guide by Interexy

Stan Sakharchuk

Co-Founder & CEO

August 31, 2022

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We all know that healthcare is one of the fields that undergo challenges thanks to COVID-19 and digitalization. Since technologies are everywhere now and people prefer to use software over calls and psychical visits to hospitals, both companies and healthcare organizations understand the need for medical software development. 

That is because technologies used in these apps greatly simplify the consultation process, allowing doctors to better manage healthcare information and move all patient-physician interactions to an automated and efficient level. Patients also love the convenience that software brings, especially during times of COVID restrictions and increased use of mobile apps.

EHR and EMR software are the two most popular types of healthcare software that reduce the paperwork and give access to patients’ data in a few clicks. Since these apps greatly improve the productivity of doctors, they have been shown to increase the revenue of a healthcare establishment and attract more users. We curated this guide to help you develop EHR software, its definition, key features, development process, and cost.

What is an EMR/EHR System & What’s the Difference?

Electronic Medical Record (EMR)

EMR is short for Electronic Medical Record software which represents a digital version of the paper charts in the doctor’s office. An EMR is designed to contain all patients’ medical and treatment histories in one place. EMR is preferred over paper data records since it allows companies to easily track data, identify patients that need preventive screenings or checkups, check how patients feel based on certain criteria, and always improve the care quality.

However, the data in EMRs cannot be easily transferred out of practice. To be more specific, the patient healthcare information may even have to be printed out and delivered by mail to doctors and other staff of the team. Considering this point, EMRs are similar to paper records.

Electronic Health Records (EHR) 

EHR is short for Electronic Health Records and can also do all the mentioned things that EMR does. However, EHR software focuses on the total health of the patient, meaning it goes much beyond standard healthcare data collected in the provider’s organization and is inclusive of a broader view of a patient’s care. That is why EHRs are used more commonly and are preferred over traditional paper records that collect and compile information. EHRs are developed to share information with other doctors and clinics since this can help laboratories and specialists provide more detailed analysis and significantly boost the care quality. 

Benefits of Using an EMR and EHR Systems For Healthсare Organizations

Convenience and Efficiency

When a healthcare or administrative team deals with physical papers and records, it usually means that it is a highly time-consuming working time. Not only does it takes time that the team can spend on more valuable things, but it also can cause human errors that usually result in costly outcomes. Taking away a team’s productivity isn’t a good thing to do in 2022. That is why EHR software development is a great solution. Quickly and easily finding the data you need at every given time offers ultimate convenience and increased efficiency of patient care.

Cost-Reduction 

All the papers you have that create a physical records system take space. To give this space, you also buy file cabinets, which cost not only money but take up your business space. Therefore, EMR software development allows you to reduce the costs needed for paper storage while also freeing space for your business needs now or in the future. With these apps, you can easily store all papers and files on a single hard drive and be backed up by the Cloud.

Easily Organized and Referenced

As may be expected, organizing is essential for the healthcare industry now. That is why the development of EHR should always be easily organized and referenced. Digital records are much easier to read and more legible. In addition, since the electronic health record stores all data in a standardized format, it makes it easy to skim through directly for the more relevant data based on your needs every time.

Easy Patient Access 

Patient care should be on a brand new level in 2022. Now people want doctors to quickly get through their previous health data before an appointment. Doctors also want to make it easier for them to explore health records. That is why EMR/EGR software development allows physicians to check a prescription that patients are on or share their medical history with a specialist. Patients now also can access their records. An electronic health record system usually offers patients an online patient portal that they can use to access their medical history and data regardless of their time and location.

Higher Security

Modern people care about their data safety. Since the number of cyberattacks grows every day, it is now vital more than ever to properly secure patient data to avoid costly mistakes and gain trust. Since paper records are easy to lose, accidentally destroy, and steal, online EHR systems bring higher safety since they are stored in databases with private access.

Ready-Made vs. Custom EHR/EMR Solutions

Custom EHR/EMR Solutions

Most modern healthcare organizations choose to develop custom EHR/EMR solutions thanks to the following reasons:

• Custom features and functionality based on business needs.
• Custom software engineers pay close attention to customers’ business processes and needs, allowing users to adjust quickly to the product.
• Custom software ideally fits users’ security, software and hardware needs.
• No additional licensing fees are required. 
• The software development provider offers constant support to its products, and all the problems are solved quickly.

Ready-Made EHR/EMR Systems

However, there is another appealing option, known as ready-made EHR/EMR software. Reasons why businesses choose this option are:

• Being industry-specific, these apps are likely to fit most business needs.
• A cost-effective solution since development costs are distributed throughout a large number of end-users. 
• Ready-made software has many features that you can need later or start using later on as business evolves.
• Users can feel safe as vendors also provide support and maintenance services.

Must-Have Features of an EHR/EMR System

1. Patient Portal or Profile

A patient portal in EMR software development works as a stand-alone app or as an extension to the system. To create a patient portal account, users should get corresponding documents such as activation codes or instructions that will help them activate and use the portal from the chosen healthcare provider.

2. Communication Features

Patients can use a patient portal or profile to efficiently get the needed information from their healthcare providers and vice versa. Communicating with the health care team can give a patient an easy way to provide appointment follow-ups, ask all health-related questions and easily get answers from psychics. 

3. E-prescriptions

Allowing doctors to provide electronic prescribing is another must-have feature. Most modern patients using software for booking apps or consulting doctors also expect the provider to give e-prescriptions. That is because hand-written prescriptions are quite outdated. It not only makes it easier for patients to request prescription refills but also allows doctors to review all prescriptions and when users need to re-prescription as well.

4. Charting & Documentation Management

One of the main reasons for most healthcare organizations to use EHR/EMR systems is to manage the abundance of medical documentation. That is why you should definitely add a medical charting feature that will allow doctors to view detailed systematic information about doctors’ interactions with particular patients, conditions, treatment plans, results, and so on.

5. Lab Integration

Information from a laboratory can be used as an essential part of EHR and EMR software. Lab integration represents an electronic health records system used by systems to allow easy tracking and receiving of patients’ test results almost with no hassle. This feature has been shown to greatly help medical laboratories avoid the most common issues like human errors, time consumption, and inventory availability. 

6. Role-Based Access Control

Since EMR and EHR systems contain sensitive patient data, they should be protected. Therefore, this feature is essential, and it will allow all hospital administrators, specialists, and physicians to access only needed information based on their access level.

How to Build Your Own EHR/EMR System?

Let’s explore how to build an EHR system below:

Gather Requirements 

Any software development should start with this stage – gathering requirements. Whether you are going to develop the product by yourself or use EMR software development services, your engineering team should know all your requirements and business needs to deliver the expected result. This stage always involves identifying what pieces of functionality your tool requires, for what, and why. 

Business Analysis & Implementation Roadmap

This stage aims to ensure a proper analysis and development plan. When done correctly;y, this stage also minimizes budget and schedule and reduces technical risks, allowing you to start a safe and efficient development process.

At this stage, you may get the following:

• product vision & scope document;
• UML context diagram;
• prioritized product backlog;
• documented functional requirements ;
• documented non-functional requirements;
• lo-fi wireframes ;
• detailed product roadmap.

Development & Testing

This stage is the core of your process. Here you will need a trusted software development provider that can help you realize the idea. The provider will assist you with additional questions like the number of specialists needed and how long it will take to develop the final product. Once the app is done, your QA team will perform many manual and automation tests. 

Migration of Patient and Practice Data

When the software is developed and tested, your dev team will need to implement an EHR system in the healthcare infrastructure, allowing your organization to successfully automate document management processes and concentrate on offering highly personalized medical care.

Cost of EHR/EMS System Development

The cost of EMR (or EHR) software development varies greatly depending on your requirements and business need. However, in the last few years, the minimum budget was around $80.000-95.000. This case is relevant when choosing cost-effective providers from Eastern Europe and the US.

How to Make Your EHR/EMR System HIPAA Compliant?

HIPAA is an essential guideline that any EHR/EMR software should be compliant with. That is because they work with sensitive patient data that should be properly protected. Make sure that your app is HIPAA compliant by exploring the information here, or hire an experienced team that offers healthcare development services, allowing you to rest assured knowing that your team knows every minor legal aspect of the process.

Our Expertise

At Interexy, we have a team of experts working in the healthcare industry. Having considerable experience in building HIPAA-compliant software that documents a patient’s health information and connects patients with doctors all across the world, we provide top-notch custom healthcare development services to cover all unique business needs. 

Among many cases of developing mHealth and HIPAA-compliant solutions, let’s mention Solstice. 

Being a pioneer in the healthcare marketplace industry, this web service has been developed by our expert team from scratch and is now in the development stage to get investments. The service is HIPAA-compliant and contains personal patient data to help healthcare organizations improve their patient care.

Solstice is a service developed especially for therapeutic organizations (pharmaceutical companies, biotechs, etc.) to easily collect patient data, like genome analyses, X-ray pictures, health records, and more, for better care quality. 

To ensure the safety of users’ medical records, we use data encryption that converts data from a readable format into an encoded format. Now the service gives patients ownership over their health data and helps therapeutic companies accelerate their innovation through comprehensive, longitudinal health information.

If you are looking for a trusted healthcare provider, Interexy offers a team of niche-down engineers and designers to work on your project and allow you to get HIPAA-compliant EHR/EMR software.

Final Thoughts

This guide is the way to go if you want to know what an electronic medical record is and how to develop this software. Here we show you the main points regarding the electronic health records software development process. Even though you can choose ready-made solutions, custom development will bring much more benefits. If you still have questions, let’s have a quick free call with our experts!