electronic

We have heard a lot of talk about Blockchain over the last few years in reference to technology and how it can revolutionise data collection, storage, and information sharing.

What if all of your healthcare providers could view your complete electronic medical record (EMR) before recommending treatment for the individual issue that they may be dealing with?

For example, it is often said that many illnesses can be first diagnosed through dental issues. Things like diabetes, for example, become apparent first in the oral cavity. Similarly, that and other non-communicable diseases can cause issues with the eye.

Saving time and moving efficiently at the first point of care at a hospital usually comes down to the ability to quickly and accurately triage.

Triaging refers to the categorising of people who seek care into most and least urgent and by the type of care they will need based on their complaints and symptoms. When we speak about waiting time at hospitals, it is usually at this stage that this has the most impact.

We don’t often consider the importance of oral health to our overall well-being. The focus tends to be on extracting teeth that have gone bad rather than creating a holistic oral healthcare plan and matching the record and diagnoses to people’s larger health realities. If we are to begin to focus on holistic health and wellness, oral health must be a part of the equation.

With the adoption of electronic medical records and full integration of technology in healthcare, related disciplines like health informatics grew in significance because of the role it could play in driving more modernised, focused and comprehensive care.

The rate of COVID-19 vaccination has not been as fast as we would like, despite the reality that we are facing with the recent introduction of the more infectious Delta variant, and now the Mu variant, into the island.

The question of who really owns patient data is still largely unsettled. Is it the physician who compiled it? Is it the institution in the case of the hospital or a practice with multiple doctors, or are the patients the owners of their information? This is largely the question that has been a barrier to sharing patient records.

Technology has been steadily developing in the healthcare industry for more than a decade. Many countries are moving towards full digitisation and interoperability of public and private healthcare facilities to include electronic medical records. Computers, cell phones and apps have all allowed persons to access healthcare and talk to their physician remotely, while keeping track of various aspects of their health.

The current COVID-19 vaccination distribution programme had me thinking about the best ways to quickly identify segments of the population that could be most at risk, not just for COVID, but for any health issue that may come up and that we have to address nationally. We speak a lot about the social determinants of health, and now we can apply them to our healthcare planning, with technology, to get a better sense of the state and needs of the population and how we can address them with specific interventions.

For the past few years, the health system has been faced with the issue of overcrowding and a lack of beds to facilitate the number of persons who need to be admitted to hospital.