What is an EMR in healthcare?
Electronic Medical Record (EMR)
An electronic medical record (EMR) is a digital record that stores your patient information at your healthcare provider to enable them to give you the care that you need.
Electronic medical records are active software that updates every time you visit your doctor or healthcare provider. Your EMR is stored in a system created by an EMR company to enable your provider to give you the healthcare you need.
Epic, athenahealth, Cerner, Allscripts, Meditech, and Medhost are just some of the EMR companies that make the software behind the electronic medical records at your healthcare provider.
With there being different EMR companies, you may have different electronic medical records at each of the doctor practices, specialists, hospitals, and healthcare organizations you have been to as each has its own custom system for medical records tailored to their needs.
Patient Portal
A patient portal is a website or app by your doctor or healthcare provider where you can see information from your electronic medical record.
You can use your healthcare provider's patient portal to help you manage your healthcare needs from keeping track of all your visits, test results, billing, and prescriptions to even communicating with your doctor by completing forms, making appointments, or asking questions.
The EMR companies mentioned above also made the patient portals that you use, so you may have more than one patient portal account! MyChart by Epic, FollowMyHealth by Allscripts, and Evident by CSPI are some examples of patient portals by EMR companies that your healthcare provider may use.
Oftentimes, the name of the patient portal is custom-named based on the health system or healthcare provider. Learn more about how you can get access to your medical records from your healthcare provider.
If you encountered at least one of these scenarios, you have multiple patient portal accounts:
You moved to a different part of your home state or moved to another part of the United States.
You got a new job along with new health insurance that your current healthcare provider doesn't take and have to see a new one.
You have seen a specialist for a specific condition like a chronic illness outside of your healthcare provider.
You went to the emergency room, urgent care, or walk-in clinic.
About Wingspan Health
Wingspan Health is a healthcare technology company that believes that quality healthcare should be accessible for everyone.
Our tool helps you understand your health by organizing your medical information in one place – from all of your patient portal accounts at each of your healthcare providers.
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