We get calls from hospitals all over the state asking for Electronic Medical Records (EMR software) , as part of the ERP solution for hospitals. EMR certainly improves quality of healthcare and keeps patient records up to date.
Recent advances in technology could bring about changes in the way EMR is looked at.? Tablet PC powered by Android would help portability, affordability and build interfaces that require no keyboard input.
Truth about EMR in India - management commitment, complexity, resistance to change, digital divide among medical community, fear of the unknown, regulatory compliance, installation cost and transparency. Here are some articles of interest.
EMR is a tough nut to crack
Integrating the deliverables in organisation goals would be another way of effectively implementing EMR in hospitals Workflow adoption is citied as another reason for EMR implementations to fail.
What doctors want to know about the web
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Tags: android, emr, implementation, tablet pc
The issues associated with EMR is what is the cost and what is the benefit ? If he hospitals are already making profits why would they go for an EMR ? If they do not use EMR what is the loss ? Is not EMR redundant in present scenario ? Why complicate the current practice ? These are the questions which automatically comes to mind of a doctor entrepreneur when someone advocates for an EMR.
Coming to the cost factor. Cost is a thing which has always been a concern of a healthcare business , pertaining to the return on investment. I have seen a hospital wouldn’t mind spending a million rupees on improving the aesthetic look of the interior than spending on a good information system.
The benefits of an information system is not tangible and to perceive the benefit one has to diligently have an eye on the processes and outcomes over a period of time.Another catch 22 remains in Indian scenario, there is not considerable R&D activities , and an IT company wouldn’t spent that much for I&T unless they feel the outcome of R&D in form of a solution would make a good business. Unlike a payer provider model where information retrieval is directly proportional to the components of the revenue cycle and affects the financial outcomes, the out of pocket delivery model is not dependent on information retrieval except for clinical decision making and to some extent taking marketing decisions and strategy making.( an existing patient info is very much important which is not perceived by Indian hospital fraternity in contrast they feel they will invariably get patients )
The healthcare sector is prone to dynamic changes and a time will come there will be saturation of the service delivery and at that point patient information storage and retrieval would definitely of utmost importance. Not only form financial point of view but also marketing , strategy formation and making a secondary business formation ( huge amount of patient data can be sold to clinical research organisations ). Some barriers for electronic medical are development costs and training costs for effective use.Innovative approach is needed while developing an EMR where the clerical job is not imposed on the Physicians who are going to use it , It should be kept simple and should be envisaged for smarter use. E-scription and use of other dashboard techniques, voice capture,conversion to text file from voice could be used , and there are many other options which can substantially make EMR smarter , nevertheless costs are also associated.
There should be some surveillance to manage the errors.Then comes data mining , retrieval techniques which has to be designed aptly. Successful use of EMR makes legible use of data, secure patient identity , on line real time retrieval, quicker decision making , quicker results in patient treatment and management , and easier use of patient information.