Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Improvements Brought By Electronic Medical Record Software

By Angel Dudley


In the recent past, the need for better management and coordination of patient data has led to the initiation of many pilot projects in electronic medical record software. It has been proposed that the current HIV pandemic can best be handled through large scale coordination of treatment programs. The biggest challenge with ICT projects in the medical field is the need to conduct concurrent research to add to existing knowledge.

In the developed countries, the success of EMR systems has been fueled by the belief in their potential to improve overall healthcare. These systems have eased the relaying of crucial medical information over long distance and reduced medical errors through decision support mechanisms. Resource availability alone is not enough to facilitate efficient EMRs because of challenges in modifying available technologies to suit local needs.

A model that worked in another country may be a source of contention if it is implemented in a different nation. Nevertheless, for introductory purposes, it is worthwhile to discuss models that worked in impoverished areas that are believed to sustain the biggest part of the world population. Through a distributed database, doctors can link up, discuss and make joint decisions when presented with challenging medical situations.

An EMR is a means of archiving the patient information on a computer. They are structured in a similar manner to conventional paper records describing the treatment and nursing history of patients. These may include past diagnoses, allergies or demographic information. In this manner, the health numbers, occupations and physical locations of many citizens can be captured for updating a database.

Databases hold data that is structured in a format that is easy to manipulate. It is made up of fields which collectively make up a table. These fields indicate the attributes of a given entity that belongs to the database. Imagine such a filing system that contains the data of tuberculosis patients. Possible fields include names, age, past prescriptions and the physical address. A record is said to exist once these fields are filled with the respective data.

For efficient access and manipulation, it is paramount that a Database Management Software (DBMS) is developed. Sometimes, expansion or the need for integration may call for a distributed DBMS that will allow data access from multiple geographical locations. The aim of these applications is to facilitate concurrency, performance monitoring and authentication of accessing parties.

The reception clerk will not have to delay needy citizens in retrieving previous records. Conventional paper records could only be accessed by one person at a time. A distributed health chart is accessible to all departments at the same time. The overall result is less processing time and better health care to ill citizens.

An electronic medical record software is a good example of a DBMS that has been adapted to the needs of the healthcare sector. In the interest of bettering healthcare globally, the World Health Organization has been releasing guidelines on patient monitoring in different medical conditions. The implementing team is then left with the responsibility of gracefully tailoring it to variations in their spoken languages.




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