Electronic health records paving the way for quality patient care at lower cost
Over the past few years, India’s healthcare industry has undergone significant transformation driven by faster technological developments. Rapid advancements in technology are also helping in the implementation of digital health record systems. Digital Health Records (DHRs), or Electronic Health Records (EHRs), play a vital role in patient care by keeping a meticulous record of each patient’s registration, diagnoses, treatments, and tests. This is not only important for physicians to provide quality patient care, but also for patients to save money by eliminating the need for expensive re-tests.
In September 2013, Union Ministry of Health & Family Welfare notified the EHR standards for the country. An EHR is a collection of various medical records that are generated during any clinical encounter or event. The purpose of collecting medical records is manifold — improved, evidence based care; an increasingly accurate, faster, and personalised diagnosis that results in better and cheaper treatment; avoiding unnecessary and repeat investigations; predictive analytics to support personalied care; and improved health policy decisions based on a better understanding of underlying issues — all translating into improved personal and public health.
EHRs are also important for lowering the time for documenting and maintaining patients’ records, besides helping boost the relationship between patient and provider because of the personalised approach and easier access to syntactically and semantically interoperable health data records that allows better optimisation and workflow automation for healthcare providers. This also helps in better patient care at different levels and enables easier access to evidence-based tools for providers to offer specific patient care recommendations.
As we try to imagine how EHRs should evolve out of necessity, it will help us understand what health care may look like in the next decade. More advanced technologies will enable new capabilities. According to a report, the global EHR market was valued at $28.1 billion in 2022 and is likely to touch $38.5 billion by 2030, growing at a 4 per cent compounded annual growth rate (CAGR). Nowadays, EHR implementation has become a basic activity for major healthcare players, functioning as digital or electronic patient records of important data collated from various notes and prescriptions to vital signs and symptoms history, radiology and lab reports, and more.
The Deloitte Center for Health Solutions carried out a survey of 38 US-based College of Healthcare Information Management Executive (CHIME) members during the 2022 spring and questioned 13 EHR experts from 10 organisations, comprising EHR companies, healthcare companies, startup firms, and government agencies in 2022 summer. The Deloitte report predicts that crucial drivers — such as data interoperability, data-sharing, and consumerism — will radically change the healthcare industry by 2030.
Consumers would prefer to focus more on prevention and well-being.
Many survey respondents said that healthcare consumers want both convenient access to healthcare and good relationships with their physicians. If they wish to choose anyone, they would surely pick convenience. To meet this, over 50 per cent of the survey respondents would like to adopt methods that improve the consumer experience and so would like to lower the time and burden of accessing care. So, more than 60 per cent of the respondents plan to invest in patient communication tools — such as telehealth and messaging capabilities — with their healthcare team over the next three to five years. Virtual registration and online appointment scheduling are some of the other consumer-specific activities that healthcare companies want to invest in during this period.
To address some of these pain points, health apps are trying to streamline the patient registration process through the use of biometrics. These can make patients’ wait times shorter because patients can be checked in faster and will no longer have to share their date of birth, medical record number, and other data at each appointment. This will even help in lowering the burden on the front-office personnel and avoid misidentification of patients and fraud.
Importance of EHRs
Moving towards a more value-based patient care model, the healthcare industry requires more specific EHRs for this.
- Digitisation of patient information is a major objective of most healthcare providers. This is about to herald a paradigm shift in EHR adoption.
- EHR features will also be vital for driving the overall efficacy of medical care systems. Reports say that the market is expected to peak in 2023 at $30.4 billion, a 4 per cent growth compared to 2017.
- EHR adoption will also benefit both healthcare providers and patients with its user-friendliness, easy access to data, and support for existing healthcare workflows.
- EHRs can streamline the entire data entry process by utilising machine learning and artificial intelligence. Providers can lower manual operations remarkably with EHR-based automation and charts with customisable templates.
- EHRs will also be interoperable and can be integrated with some such existing processes as billings, claims processing, scheduling, and integration with lab software tools. This will help with two-way patient data and result sharing.
- EHR software will help doctors access all prescribed medications of patients and also track and record their medication history, allowing better visibility of the entire treatment scope. This will not only boost patient care through better medication management but also reduce the chances of errors from a lack of understanding or poor handwriting.
- EHRs will lower the requirement for manual data retrieval and medical research can be readily accessed according to demand through a portal for patients which may be accessed directly. Easier access encourages patients to have higher involvement in their healthcare journeys, thereby improving medical outcomes.
Future Trends of EHR
- Healthcare players will harness accelerated methodologies for deployment in a bid to save money and lower the costs of implementation.
- EHR cycle times will be lowered further, allowing for continued delivery of all necessary operations for clients.
- More app extensions will enable higher interoperability while enabling quick deployment of independent solutions to be integrated into the EHR-based systems.
- EHR systems will steadily transition into extensive platforms for digital health. They will also help in customising user experiences.
- Language processing and voice assistance will further streamline entries, and searches for, records.
- Patient care will improve through easier accessibility and shorter perpatient time while driving patient data accuracy and lowering errors. Interoperability will allow faster and better care and decision-making by healthcare providers.
- Telehealth platforms can be combined with EHRs for launching services and maintaining, or tracking records.
To sum it up
Health records were initially used to illustrate individual processes. But now, health records are a much broader concept than in the past because, in the past, it was the doctor alone who recorded data. Today, the idea that any person in India can go to any health service provider/practitioner, any diagnostic centre, or any pharmacy and yet be able to access and have fully integrated and always available health records in electronic format is not only empowering but also the vision for efficient healthcare delivery in the 21st Century.
