A comprehensive system of electronic medical records promises to save lives and cut health care costs—but how do you build one?
From the article:
With your medical records in paper form and scattered across the offices of various practitioners, the people treating you when you need those records most—when you’re lying on a gurney in the emergency room, say—may have no idea what to do. Sometimes they do the wrong thing: in the United States alone, an estimated 98 000 deaths occur annually from medical mistakes, and 1.5 million people suffer from adverse drug interactions, incorrect doses, and other medication errors. Many of these deaths and injuries could be avoided if the full medical records of patients were available to their treating physicians.
After a history of false starts, a comprehensive system of electronic health records linking hospitals, general practitioners, specialists, insurance offices, and others could debut in the United States within a decade. Other countries, including Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, and the United Kingdom, have also announced national programs to automate medical records [see table, “Major Playersâ€]. Of these, Finland is likely to be first, with a planned launch by the end of next year. Meanwhile, the UK has been struggling to roll out its digital health record system for more than four years, with little to show for its efforts.
Source: IEEE Spectrum
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