The ongoing march of technology, at a scorching pace, transforming our everyday personal – working and social lives. This is palpable. In tandem, it is also making traditional processes of doing successful business less and less productive, over a period of time. The same is more than visible in the healthcare space too. One such field – although not so widely discussed just yet, is maintaining Electronic Health Record (EHR). This is so important for both patients and healthcare providers to ensure significantly better treatment outcomes at a lesser cost, and reducing disease burden of disease too, in that endeavor.
EHR being a systematic, ongoing process of maintaining health records of every individual, help provide prompt, effective and safe health care for all. It helps immensely whenever the person visits a doctor either in private clinics or in any health center for treatment of any disease condition, or even for preventive measures.
Health profession bodies in various countries have articulated what should get included in the health record of individuals. Let me draw an example from one of the BRICS nations. The Health Profession Council of South Africa (HPCSA) defines health records as “any relevant record made by a health care practitioner at the time of, or subsequent to, a consultation and/or examination or the application of health management”. Since, over any person’s lifetime a massive health data gets generated, the current trend is to capture and store such medical data electronically and is, therefore, called ‘Electronic Health Record’ or EHR.
Laudably, India also formally notified its detail intent to make EHR system work in the country. In this article, I shall deliberate on what is the current status of EHR in India, and the key barriers that need to be overcome to make the process gain momentum, in the days ahead.
What EHR can do:
Before zeroing on to India specific initiative on EHR, let me recapitulate what it entails, quoting from a credible global source. According to Health IT- the official website of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, being real-time- patient-centered records, EHRs make health information available instantly, “whenever and wherever it is needed”. As this process brings together in one place everything about a patient’s health, EHRs can:…continue reading…
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