Giving up pens and paper charts for PDAs and laptops is a struggle for many hospitals across
The prize at the end of this EMR race:
fewer medical errors,
earlier diagnoses and
improved patient care.
The hurdles along the route:
- cost of technology,
- time
- resources and
- an aversion and reluctance to move into the intricacies of the electronic world.
According to a Citrix Systems Inc. survey approximately 30% of private-sector health care providers are just in the planning stage of implementing an electronic medical records system. The report includes physicians' offices and hospitals.
Case study in EMR Success
There are a few hospitals that have seen the light and are well ahead of the pack in the EMR race.
Sick Kids doctors and adminstrators alike recognised that with patients often moving between different areas of the hospital during their visit, it was a challenge to ensure paper-based records and files were in the right place at the right time.
Adding another layer to the paper problem is where to keep all the physical files. With an estimated 60,000 charts per year for research purposes alone, and nearly 50,000 emergency visits a year, storing and accessing those files was expensive, according to Debi Senger, director of health records at the
The solution to simplify and streamline patient record management, and do so in a way that would be easy for time-strapped medical staff to use, was to scan the physical documents into an EPC – electronic patient chart using Synergize™ Electronic Patient Chart (EPC) system based on Microsoft® SQL Server™2000.
Sick Kids patient records from May 2000 onward are now available on EPC. An added bonus on top of all the benefits mentioned above is that because data is stored in an electronic format, multiple users can view patient records simultaneously and instantly via hospital workstations, as opposed to everyone vying for a single paper chart.
