Electronic Health Records or the EHRs are used extensively in the healthcare industry. EHRs are not only used in the hospitals but they are also used by the practitioners who are owning a clinic. The main reason why doctors or the healthcare experts are keen to use the EHRs is the fact that it makes their life a lot easy. The EHRs are used to lessen the operational burden and to streamline the overall clinic management process. As, EHRs help the doctors to manage their appointments and even their finances digitally, without much hassle.
Though, the EHRs have done a lot to transform the way the healthcare world works, but still, there are more expectations from the EHRs. People want the EHRs to be much better and efficient. Also, the speed of the EHRs is a bit of a concern. As, at the end of the day, EHRs are meant to smoothen the practice management of the doctor, therefore, ideally, they should not be slow and tough to handle as otherwise, they would not solve the purpose. Therefore, there are a plenty of expectations from the new set of EHRs.
Listed below are a few expectations to reinvent the EHR experience for both the doctor and the patient:
- EHRs should be less cumbersome and confusing
First of all, irrespective of the fact that whether the EHRs are used by the doctor or by the patient, the EHR integration should be very easy to manage. Therefore, the user experience of the EHRs has to be better. The EHRs should not only be much more intuitive and interesting, but at the same time, they should be easy to use. As, at the end of the day, EHRs are solving the problem, and they should do it properly. This means that the EHRs should only be focused to reduce the speed of operations of the clinic or a hospital and increase the efficiency of the tasks. Therefore, there is a certain amount of rework that the current EHR manufacturers need to do in order to make the EHRs a lot more user friendly.
- Inculcation of new technology like Artificial Intelligence and Big Data
In order to make sure that the EHRs are a lot more powerful than earlier, the makers have to include new-age technology in the EHRs. There have been talks that AI would be used to make EHRs better. In fact, at some places, Artificial Intelligence is already being used to improve the performance of the EHRs. AI will allow the healthcare experts to develop prediction models. With the help of Big Data analytics, healthcare professionals will try to find out the probability of certain illnesses or conditions. In fact, some of the companies are even trying to build strong AI-based image interpretation algorithms. Therefore, there is no doubt about the fact that AI and Big Data will definitely improve the EHR experience. In fact, these technologies will make the EHRs not only more powerful, but also more helpful for the doctors.
- Patient-facing EHRs should contain additional features
EHRs are generally clinic facing and patient facing. When it comes to the patient facing EHRs, they are generally a part of the new-age healthcare apps. And, such apps contain a plenty of more features than only the health records. It also contains the option to find the doctors nearby and to even fix appointments. In fact, the EHRs make it easy for the patients to stay in touch with their doctors digitally, through the app. Also, some of the healthcare apps have the ‘knowledge enhancement sections’ as well which contain useful health tips for the users.
The market of EHR is huge, and it is expected to grow at a great pace. EHRs are presently already used in the vast majority of the clinics and healthcare institutes, and very soon EHRs will be used in every clinic and healthcare set up. Apart from focusing on the areas listed above, the makers of the EHRs will have to focus on the security of the EHRs as well. They have to make the EHRs more secure, so that the EHRs are less prone to data theft and other security breaches.
