To receive well-rounded, high quality care, Canadians need to visit a wide range of specialized medical professionals like psychologists, dentists, or massage therapists. However, despite their specialized practices, health information collected from patients in each facility strongly overlap one another and can be taken advantage of to reduce time spent collecting data. Of course, time savings per patient may be miniscule, but the effects are greatly magnified by the number of patients each facility handles. Connected health information systems takes this benefit one step further.
Imagine a patient experiencing abdominal pain. If the physician cannot confidently diagnose the patient’s symptoms with their in-house tools, the physician will require help from external facilities like lab services and x-ray imaging centres. This is a common scenario within the medical field today. The physician fills out a physical form of the tests he or she would like performed by the third-party medical facility. The patient would then need to travel to their location, hand the form to the frontline clerk to be typed into their database, perform the necessary tests, and finally travel back to the physician to hand in their results.
Why does the patient need to transfer physical sheets of paper to be transcribed digitally anyway? Each facility should have the capacity to exchange the necessary data, to save both the patient and the facility time. These are the questions being addressed with connected health information systems like interoperable EMRs and EHRs.
Not sure about what the key differences between an EMR and an EHR are? Read one of our previous blogs here.
Interoperable health record systems provide Canadians secure, private access to their historical care records. Patients can then allow authorized facilities to view their records to perform care quickly and efficiently. Loved ones of patients can also be authorized to view records as well. This is especially useful when patients are unable to make decisions on their own. Loved ones can view what care was provided, tests performed, and at what time. This offers significant time savings to the facility by freeing phone lines and staff to perform other day-to-day tasks.
Interoperable EMRs and EHRs do more than save time, however. Medical facilities can quickly determine what medications the patient is on, any allergies, or other complications in an expedited manner—even if the patient is incapacitated. This greatly reduces preventable medical errors from occurring by understanding what medication can or cannot be administered to the patient. Addressing medical errors is a key component to connected health solutions, as they account for approximately 17,000 to 23,000 deaths in Canada every year and is the 3rd leading cause of death, behind only cancer and heart disease.
The need for interoperable EMRs and EHRs is very clear: saving time and resources for both patients and facilities is critical to ensuring a streamlined process and mitigating medical errors in the future.
AccessEMR has the solution for your medical facility. Our product is an interoperable, cloud-based software specializing in long-term post acute care (LTPAC) and adheres to all Canadian and American health information system standards including HIA, PIPEDA, FHIR, HIPAA, ONC, and HL7. In addition to interoperable EMRs’ medical error mitigation features mentioned above, AccessEMR also utilizes a database of medication to prevent unintended adverse side effects of different combinations of drugs. If an adverse side effect is detected, the medical professional is notified. Checks and balances such as this add another preventative layer that protects you, your staff, and your patients from medical errors. If you are a medical professional seeking a customized solution for your medical facility, we can help. Book a demo with us today to learn more about our cloud-based solution.