How Next-gen Electronic Health Record Can Make Your Life Simpler

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How Next-gen Electronic Health Record Can Make
Your Life Simpler
Change is constant. This applies to the field of
patient data whether it is handled by individual
doctors or by large hospitals and healthcare
services providers across the country. From
storing patient records in Excel sheets to
database systems the world of patient data
records has progressed to electronic health
records. Even within this we have different types
of electronic health record systems such as one
hosted by individual physicians known
as electronic medical records, remotely
hosted electronic health record software and
remote systems accessible to a large number of
users.  
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However, what distinguishes these
existing electronic health record systems is that
they are passive or historical, simply
maintaining a record of the patients illnesses,
diagnostics and treatments at one or more
facilities. This is good but proves to be a
stumbling block when there are major issues like
a pandemic where other parameters come into play
such as preventive and proactive measures to
identify vulnerable populations, keep track of
infected individuals, their recovery rate, their
specific conditions and reactions to treatment
and data to take steps to prevent spread. There
are blocks such as high cost, excessive
documentation and lack of user-friendliness in
currently existing EHR systems. Most of these
focused more on the administrative and financial
side with the medical side added on as an
afterthought.  These systems also imposed
additional work burdens on personnel. The Covid
pandemic worldwide brought out these deficiencies
and paved the way to introduce changes
to electronic health record systems for the
future.  
It is time for a change to the electronic health
record systems and the way they are implemented
and used.   In fact, according to EHR
Intelligence, the use of EHR in July, 2020
increased by 2.06 compared to the pre-pandemic
times.  Future developments in electronic health
record software could and should include various
advancements as detailed below. 
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Structural technical underpinnings
Future EHR software applications should have
solid technical underpinnings to incorporate the
latest advances in IT technologies such
as  Algorithms need to be incorporated
into medical EHR software to combine various case
conditions, interconnected health issues,
treatments based on patients individual
situations, and flexibility for healthcare
workers to step in as may be needed according to
the situation but do it automatically and
speedily with minimal human intervention.   Such
futuristic electronic health record EHR solutions
would also have advanced decision support and
workflow logic to remind team members through a
variety of channels about patients, available
plans and facilities for fast action.    The
future medical EHR software will be able to
fluidly deliver analytics for individuals and for
populations within specific geographic regions
and to have predictive capabilities as regards
the spread of disease.  
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Intelligence at the core
As they stand current EHR software
applications are focused on maintaining past data
about patients, their activities and particularly
the revenues side. Incorporation of intelligence
into such EHR systems does not pose a big
challenge given the voluminous amounts of data
sets that can be used for machine learning to
facilitate predictive capabilities. It could, for
example, analyze variables such as whether a
patient is following a treatment routine, their
deviations and possible outcomes and suggest
possible steps to remedy this kind of situation. 
Importantly, futuristic electronic health record
systems should be able to analyze and deliver
suggestions to busy doctors so that they can put
such suggestions into practice instead of wasting
time in thinking about individual problems.
Indirectly, analyzing patients in bulk who are
infected with a specific disease could show up
peculiar conditions that would be missed by most
doctors treating individual patients.
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Real-time big data analytics needs to become part
of the overall electronic health record system to
be used worldwide or countrywide, similar to the
airline reservation system in which all
stakeholders can get information in real-time.
This also has implications in disease detection,
spread and preventative measures.  
The question of access
Though electronic health records are available
for sharing by healthcare service providers,
access still remains limited. The issue of
accessibility needs to be addressed considering
that 66 of users search for information on the
internet and 88 of appointments is booked via
phone or other digital means. Electronic health
record systems can take a leaf out of how
businesses manage their communications and manage
customers by providing remote multi-channel
access across various devices with fluid
crossover from desktops to mobiles as and when
needed, both for patients and doctors.   Technolo
gies to incorporate are natural language
processing, voice recognition and IoT to further
broaden the scope of accessibility.   The
question of accessibility also leads to
standardization and uniformity of electronic
health record systems as well as data protocols
for glitch-free use and operation.  
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Accessibility also raises issues of security that
can be addressed using blockchain technology for
validation, data security, claims, authentication
and prevention of insurance frauds.
Multiplicity of plans
Health care services would vastly improve and
patients would benefit if future electronic
health record software were to incorporate the
facility to enable providers to prepare plans for
various contingencies. 
Population health management
Instead of considering a single patient, the
future electronic health record systems can help
providers to set up plans for populations based
on a set of parameters relating to disease, age,
gender and economic drivers. Data can be gathered
through various devices like smartwatches and IoT
devices and providers can take inputs to devise
flexible plans.  
Health information exchange
Interoperability is a part of EHR but needs to be
improved to give immediate access to any health
care services provider, especially in cases of
emergency.  
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Training
The more sophisticated a medical health record
solution becomes in the future the more complex
it is likely to be and it will likely involve a
learning curve. Service providers in the
healthcare segment would work alongside solution
providers to give the training to bring users up
to speed on 5G technologies, AIs benefits, IoT
and wearables and how to use the system to derive
the maximum benefit.  After all, sophisticated
electronic health record software is like a
sophisticated car or aircraftone must know how
to use it or it will be practical of little use.
It pays to join hands with the right vendor who
considers all these aspects when you decide to go
for medical EHR software.  Enhance patient
engagement, improve accessibility, and leverage
standardized processes. Get medical EHR
software now! 
www.omnimd.com sales_at_omnimd.com
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