The document discusses the use of technology in healthcare, including electronic health records (EHRs) and mobile devices. EHRs can improve patient care by facilitating tasks like prescribing medications, tracking test results, and coordinating care across providers. However, most EHR systems still cannot effectively share information or coordinate care. New technologies like smartphones and social media are also changing how healthcare providers communicate and deliver care. Comprehensive health information technology is needed to support these tools and enable evidence-based shared knowledge and decision making.

1. TECHNOLOGY….
Reincarnating Healthcare Services.
Key words
EHR : Electronic Health Record
EMR : Electronic Medical Record
HIT : Healthcare Information Technology
Future flags
Electronic tasking
Smartphones and PDAs
How to Maximize Your EMR
EMR can handle medical history and follow follow-up, orders for tests, prescriptions sent
electronically, warnings of drug interactions or contraindications, highlighting of outout-
of-range test levels, and reminders for guideline
guideline-based interventions. Such a system
also performs the basic functions of patient demographic information, patient problem
lists, clinical notes, orders for prescriptions, and the viewing of laboratory and imaging
results.
Utility of EHR
Problem lists that are searchable and link to previous progress notes on similar
problems
Future flags and electronic tasking to remind staff what work remains to be done
for patients and to prompt their future actions.
Instant messaging between team members streamlines work and helps people
members-
work effectively as a team. Help with requesting and tracking referrals.
Help with requesting and tracking referrals -Transmitting referrals
Transmitting
electronically and linking them to tests and radiology can end duplication of effort.
Help in coordinating care across settings, providers, and time.
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2. TECHNOLOGY….
Reincarnating Healthcare Services.
E-prescribing linked to the EHR, which includes information about how and when
prescribing
patients fill their prescriptions and their experiences using them.
Clinical decision support that can link to a patient’s record to help when
guidelines offer equivocal advice. Care pathways, clinical guidelines, and protocols
set up within the EHR help to care for a broader population of patients
patients.
Patient portals that enable two
two-way communication between patients and
providers and give patients more responsibility for their own health.
Registry programs linked to scheduling systems, which are essential for tracking
no-shows and improving population health.
shows
Confronting the Downsides
An EHR should be able to communicate with other electronic systems seamlessly.
Unfortunately, the standards that allow such sharing are still mostly in development
phases. Even on a lower level, there are difficulties with today’s technology.
Care Coordination is the Missing Link in EHRs. If one of the key requirements of a high
high-
functioning primary care office is the ability to coordinate care, a necessary tool is IT
that allows information exchange. Unfortunatel most EHRs can’t do that.
Unfortunately,
Electronically generated consult notes from specialists are “burdened with minutiae. If
ctronically
you are going to talk about meaningful use, you have to have the ability to
communicate information in an efficient manner. Moreover, an EHR’s output is only as
good as the input. The record is only as good as what you or your staff put into it.
e
Using Smartphones and PDAs
A Blackberry can be used for drug information and medical references and to e e-mail
colleagues. From a remote place one can view a summary sheet on the phone that’s
leagues. heir
linked to their practice’s EHR. They can communicate at work place just via a touch to
r
an iPhone button that will call the department and send them that summary sheet.
one
They can then go back and use voice activated dictation to communicate the same.
voice-activated
When they goes to work the next day and turns on their computer, that event appears
r
as a chart entry.
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3. TECHNOLOGY….
Reincarnating Healthcare Services.
The Next Step: Social Media
Less common, but perhaps growing in importance. Social media in include online
communities, blogs, videos, wikis, and other formats for sharing information. For
physicians, that means at least becoming familiar with high quality online Web
high-quality
resources and social networks and referring patients to them or providing a link to
them on their Website.
Physicians are reported reading or writing health related blogs or message boards,
health-related
participating in health-related chat rooms, posting health content online, and using
related
online patient support groups. Furthermore, many adults now have wireless and
mobile access, which draws peop into conversations about health. New tools are
people
starting to appear online that help patients manage their own healthcare, such as
Google Health (www.google.com/health and Microsoft’s Healthvault (www.healthvault
www.google.com/health) www.healthvault.
com),, can link to a patient’s online health record.
Establishing Cyber (or E-) visits
Cyber-
Billable virtual visits are becoming a more normal part of state-of-the-art primary care
art
practice for established patients. The visits are conducted online, usually through
secure portals set up as part of the practice’s Website or EHR rather than through
unsecured e-mail exchange. HIT uses evidence-based templates for cybervisits. The e-
based
visit programs ask the patient a host of questions. Which enables Physicians to make a
more educated determination. And because it takes their time, effort, expertise, and
risk, they can bill for that cybervisit. But it avoids a patient, to come in to see a
physician at the cost of an office visit. It’s a win
win-win situation.
Older Technology Still Viable
chnology
Exceptional practices are also figuring out ways to use older technology, such as
telephones and faxes, in fresh ways. One strategy is to use automated telephone calling
systems to reach out to patients who aren’t coming in for visits or following through on
recommendations. The quality of care has improved and the practice has had a nice
nd
return on our investment because the percentage of patients who respond create
billable services.
IT experts agree that technology is never the entir answer. Results depend on how it
entire
is used, and there are always limits.
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4. TECHNOLOGY….
Reincarnating Healthcare Services.
Learnings:
Traditional health records are paper based which are very difficult to organise and
record the same, even the chances of losing the records are also high. Reason behind
this is the information in such records are scattered and poorly linked with each other.
Of all the physicians reported using all or partial EHR systems only a very small subset
were using systems comprehensively i.e. making use of their EHR in a fully f functional
way. Expanding the use of EMR, to various functions that can make the practice more
EMR,
efficient. These changes will expand its capabilities to include scheduling online, offering
links on its website to medical information sites, ee-mailing online prescriptions to
rescriptions
pharmacies instead of faxing them, creating a disease registry, making its patient
summary information screen searchable, and adding an electronic encounter form that
can generate a summary page for each patient after the appointment. Smart Smartphone
applications are making EHRs accessible anywhere and enable them to consult
constantly for drug information, medical references and to e mail colleagues.
e-mail
If we are unable to deliver today’s science and technology, it will be even worse with the
innovations in the pipeline.
vations
“Knowing is not enough; we must apply
Willing is not enough; we must do”
This creates a thrust for comprehensive and organized IT architecture to support
necessary tools viz. EMR, EHR, PHR, etc. This will facilitate shared knowled and free
knowledge
flow of information which will provide the needed transparency, including the system’s
performance on safety, cooperation among clinicians, and patient satisfaction. Such
tools will also help in evidence based decision making.
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