Healthcare digitization: Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities

The digitization of medical files into Electronic Health Records (EHRs), or Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) aims to improve the overall efficiency and quality of patient care at a reasonable cost. EHRs are crucial for strengthening healthcare delivery. In facilitating the meaningful and purposeful use of data, they are specifically meant to get patients empowered to play active roles in care, and to give doctors easy access to information relevant to medical interventions and ongoing treatment.

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Technology has been driving transformations in healthcare recently, and the resulting impacts, though in the developmental stage, are marked by drawbacks. With the threat of penalties to eligible professionals failing to maximize digitized medical records, and with the growing barriers associated with usage and user errors, divided attention between process and patient, and conflicting computer systems, medical practitioners and professionals are faced with complications directly affecting care delivered to patients.

A recent news report from USA Today demonstrates the actual use of digitized medical records and discusses the features, uses, and perceived challenges of EHRs/EMRs.

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Current systems and health information exchange platforms are diverse, fragmented, and have limited interoperability. With the wide variety of EHR systems flooding the market, instead of allowing user independence and flexibility, editable functions are limited to creating additional fields rather than aligning parameters to a doctor’s specific practice and operational goals.

Experts still agree, however, that EHR systems could provide user-friendly interfaces that are truly customized according to the ways each doctor treats patients, approaches his/her field, and manages the practice in a cost-effective package that does not require a huge up-front investment. It is then necessary for developers of EHR systems to prioritize the doctors’ needs first, rather than create a feature where doctors would squeeze themselves into pre-defined structure, often constraining their individuality, professional approach and expertise.

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