EMR, EHR, CCR … How Do They Work?
October 11th, 2006 by Jon Mertz
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An interesting article was written entitled “The Evolution of EMR Standards.” Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) are increasingly being adopted by various healthcare practices, and the drive becomes to integrate the EMRs between the different healthcare providers. For example, physicians want to electronically submit test orders to labs or diagnostic imaging centers and then receive the results back into the patient’s EMR. The value is understood - strengthened patient safety (no re-keying of information), faster turnaround on patient diagnosis, and streamlined operations. However, which integration standard to use?
EHR, EMR, CCR … it can get confusing. In its most simple form, an Electronic Health Record (EHR) holds all of a patient’s information while an EMR is the specific patient information from one healthcare provider. Essentially, there is one EHR and multiple EMRs for a patient. The Continuity of Care (CCR) pulls a required subset of information from a patient’s EMR and sends it to another provider that needs to deliver care to that patient.
A “harmonization” of integration standards is underway to enhance the interoperability requirements of healthcare today. Two of the primary integration standards for EMRs are HL7 and CCR. Initially, there was some positioning between the two organizations - HL7 and CCR - but then they came together and consolidated some efforts. CCR will be mapped into HL7’s Clinical Document Architecture, so some standards harmonization is occurring.
The picture may look gray at times, so flexibility will be essential in the integration implementation approach. Being able to deal with HL7, CCR, and other integration standards effectively will assist in the EMR adoption rates as the harmonization of standards process continues.
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[…] Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems are actively incorporating the ability to interface effectively as they continue efforts towards becoming CCHIT certified. Physician offices, therefore, are actively adopting EMR systems to help meet that goal. In the process, they often approach their radiology or laboratory service providers to send electronic results to their new EMR. […]
[…] In radiology, the exchange of electronic health records (EHR) translates to access to a patient’s prior imaging history being available to help improve the quality of the patient’s current diagnosis and/or treatment. […]
[…] More independent reference laboratories and imaging centers are connecting to their referring community of physicians by creating interfaces between their Laboratory Information System (LIS), Radiology Information System (RIS), and the physician’s Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system. […]
[…] The Continuity of Care Document (CCD) was approved earlier this week. The CCD is a collaborative effort between the HL7 and ASTM International organizations. To add to confusion, there are multiple standards for electronic patient record (EMR / EHR) integration. They are: […]
[…] With CCD, the CCR is represented and mapped into the HL7 CDA. These are structured XML standards for clinical information exchange. The harmonized standards should support greater streamlined exchanges with Electronic Medical Record (EMR) and Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems as well as various healthcare providers. […]