December | 2014
A woman falls ill on an overseas business trip and heads to the local hospital for treatment. When she meets the doctor, she is surprised to see that he already has her complete medical history, including her previous surgery and medication information—making his treatment of her ailment a fully informed and fast one. This is what Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) stored and shared using cloud services or other new technology, make possible.
Many healthcare organizations across the world are exploring the latest technological solutions to store and share EMRs. These medical records assist doctors by keeping them informed about the patient’s basic medical details like height, weight, and blood pressure levels, without having to check repeatedly. They also help physicians understand the patient’s medical history, allowing them to make an informed diagnosis and provide the required treatment.
However, problems arise if EMRs are inaccessible or stored incorrectly. When different doctors are involved, the lack of an EMR could cause serious complications, if the patient has a medical history related to a particular medication or disease that hasn’t been properly communicated. This is where modern solutions make an entry. For instance, cloud services are a lucrative option to optimize EMRs. With medical information about a patient being stored on the cloud, it is accessible to anyone at any time and place.
Recently, a physician who treated patients in underprivileged locations around the world was frustrated with the lack of infrastructure and medical records. A mobile application was created that would allow him to store information for each patient with their GPS location, access that information anytime, and even connect with specialists globally. Such mobile applications that assist healthcare workers in areas with poor infrastructure have been dubbed ‘EMR in a backpack’.
Similarly, some mobile applications go a step ahead by tracking vital statistics of patients in care. A hospital that needs its in-house doctors to chart bedside ultrasound readings accurately, designed a mobile application that allows them to track and save readings with their phones. This move helped the healthcare provider to accurately track patient status.
Another organization involved in portable corneal transplant surgeries use a mobile application that leverages big data to track organ donors in a country and to alert healthcare workers when a matching organ was available.
Some companies are creating cloud-based EMR management systems for physicians and are customizing them for specialties such as dermatology, orthopedics, ophthalmology, gastroenterology, urology, rheumatology, otolaryngology, and plastic and cosmetic surgery. This enables doctors to manage the ever expanding sea of patient data and provide quality treatment, quickly. The optimization of EMR, with technological customization, will contribute to a better managed healthcare sector, where ailments are diagnosed and treated accurately, giving people faster and better access to healthcare.
What are your thoughts on EMR optimization? Please share your thoughts in the section below.
Wipro Insights set up the Council for Industry Research, comprising of domain and technology experts from the organization, to address the needs of customers. It specifically looks at innovative strategies that will help them gain competitive advantage in the market. The Council in collaboration with leading academic institutions and industry bodies studies market trends to equip organizations with insights that facilitate their IT and business strategies. http://www.wipro.com/insights/
Email us at: wipro.insights@wipro.com
© 2021 Wipro Limited |
|
© 2021 Wipro Limited |
Digital Operations and Platforms
Engineering, Construction & Operations
Pharmaceutical & Life Sciences