Tag: EHR

Categories
EHR Standards Knowledge

Indian Electronic Health Records(EHR) Standards – Part 4 : Shared clinical information models for semantic interoperability

Indian Electronic Health Records(EHR) Standards - Part 4 : Shared clinical information models for semantic interoperability

In our series of Indian Electronic Health Records posts, the next aspect we intend to analyze is about shared clinical information models for semantic interoperability. One of the major purpose that healthcare information systems should serve is the optimum delivery of healthcare services and treatment programs. Since healthcare is not just a temporary event or happening but a perpetual affair that covers the entire lifespan of a person, the need to bring in interoperability standards for healthcare information systems becomes paramount.

Interoperability of data in IT systems works on two levels – syntactic and semantic. The former is transactional and is defined at the interface layer and often as an afterthought to exchange information between independently designed systems, whereas the latter is achieved at the design stage of software and ensures a more meaningful data exchange that includes both information and the context of the information. A true EHR system should not just do the former, but should be designed to deliver the latter

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare(MOHFW) has taken a staged approach to enhance large scale adoption of the EHR technology, provide optimum security of health information, implement specifications, consider factors to improve interoperability and ensuring semantically interoperable EHR for Indian citizens. The Indian EHR standards includes pointers, such as OpenEHR, to the direction that the country is projected to move.

Since there are many clinical systems already in place, the first phase in pushing for EHR adoption is to define an exchange format and convert the proprietary data into that format as needed. Here the focus is on the applications and interface design, with no thought given to the underlying data. The second phase should be to standardize models for health data first and build new EHR systems on top to avoid interoperability issues completely and achieve semantic information exchange. This entails defining a shared set of clinical data models for newer EHR systems as the starting point.

As the pace of EHR adoption picks up, most healthcare organisations are beginning to realise that their data is more valuable than their applications. Since good data is key to improving outcomes, managing chronic disease and enabling population health management, it is becoming the key asset in their armory of tools. This key asset needs to be managed for the lifetime of the patient, when we all know that applications are not going to last that long. The question all of them are asking is ‘what happens to health data when we switch applications?’

The solution to the above problem is to turning the focus from applications to data. Imagine if the proposed National Health Stack for India builds on it’s common resources to include shared clinical information models that cover varied aspects of healthcare to support an Integrative healthcare paradigm. Imagine if instead of building applications, the government were to standardise models for health data? While it is unrealistic to expect that any application could cover the diverse requirements of healthcare, it would be possible to define a common set of clinical information models to support several different solutions. This would provide different stakeholders with choice of applications and vendors while at the same time delivering on the goal of making health data interoperable by design. It would also prevent vendor lock-in by making healthcare applications easier to interoperate and replace, while eliminating the high costs of data migration.

Our EHR.Network platform has been designed with this philosophy of shared clinical information models. It has been designed in line with the OpenEHR Reference Model and is designed to work with any OpenEHR Archetypes & Templates. Applications built on EHR.Network will remain future proof, portable and interoperable. We already incorporate a large number of clinical models from the International community governed Clinical Knowledge Manager(CKM). Apart from the cloud hosted public platform, we offer EHR.Network for collaboration and co-creation to build modern healthcare applications. Please contact us to know more.

Categories
Ayurveda & EHR AyushEHR Yoga & EHR

Ayurveda and Modern Healthcare – Part 3: Opportunity to Reinvent & Rejuvenate to recapture lost ground

Ayurveda-Opportunity to Reinvent & Rejuvenate to recapture lost ground

Despite being one of the oldest and most credible medical practices in India, Ayurveda has resonance only among a limited percentage of population in the country. The comprehensive umbrella of AYUSH, which comprises of streams of treatment practices such as Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani and more are known for their effectiveness. However, the patronage of such Indic practices have been very feeble when compared to the Western practices like Allopathy.

An NSSO survey as recent as in the year 2015 reveals that over 90% of the population in both the rural and urban settlements in India preferred allopathy for diagnosis and treatment. The percentage of population that resorted to AYUSH was less than 7% in both the demographics. Though the trend would now be slightly better with the government pushing AYUSH adoption through its educational programs, institutes, wellness centres and regulations, the numbers would be just slightly higher.

The onset of Disruptive Technology

One of the major reasons allopathy has gained a very strong foothold across the globe is because of its adaptability. It has been evolutionary in its journey, adopting modern technologies and trends as they arrived. In recent times, allopathy was quick to adopt the cloud-based tech revolution – Electronic Health Records(EHR) – for its practice and wellness deliverance. With individuals’ medical data stored on the clouds, this ensured people from any part of the world received standardized treatment and diagnosis. Since the data is stored on the cloud, it allowed doctors and medical practitioners to retrieve the data and provide better and personalized healthcare services to patients.

Failure to catch up with technology

The reason for allopathy gaining traction is also the reason why Ayurveda couldn’t evolve as a popular healthcare practice. There are several factors Ayurveda can consider and work on to make it mainstream once again. Today, technology has evolved to an extent that virtual bots are able to detect the most minute presence of ailments in the human body that veteran doctors couldn’t spot. Since healthcare is an evidence-based service, we have diverse technologies today that work on gathering evidence through data.

With the record of patients’, doctors are now able to not just describe and prescribe medications and ailments but predict as well. The government has also come up with regulatory bodies, national policies and standards to benchmark the adoption of technology in healthcare and pave way for regularized, cost-effective and precise treatments.

Opportunity to Reinvent and Rejuvenate

Every new technology or concept has multiple aspects of adoption and Ayurveda has to improve technology adoption in its practices to gain more patronage. Ayurveda practitioners should work on three aspects of development to make the practices mainstream –

  • Build a supportive and sustainable ecosystem
  • Bring more transparency and record keeping
  • Understand and implement standards

Building an ecosystem means that the practitioners should look for more specific ways to adopt and leverage today’s technology. The use of EHR and clinical management systems in their resorts, retreats, clinics and hospitals is an ideal way to make the best out of tech and establish credibility among people and patients. Once the measures to generate, store, retrieve and share data are in place, the practitioners should focus on streamlining healthcare practices.

Patients gain trust on science when they are informed about the procedures and concept behind it. Ayurveda practitioners should aim to achieve the same through the use of EHR. A transparent treatment agenda will not just build trust but spread patronage as well. This treatment practice will further reflect on the outcomes of the practices in the fact that patients will be able to follow medications, therapies or remedies more judiciously.

With the onset of AyushEHR from HealtheLife, there cannot be a better time to kick start the evolutionary process for Ayurveda. Our cloud-based solution tackles any shortcoming your clinic or retreat is likely to face in terms of management and wellness deliverance. With the opportunity to reinvent and rejuvenate Ayurveda ripe, you can get in touch with us to leverage disruptive technology to grow fast.

Categories
Knowledge

How an EHR platform like EHR.Network can help Nutrition experts make their work more meaningful

Patient care in hospitals and clinics don’t just stop with diagnosis and treatment. What follows after these two processes is equally important – adequate nutrition. Nutrition and adequate supplements of it is one of the crucial factors that influence the recovery of patients. A report from the National Institute of Health revealed last year that malnutrition in patients has been one of the major reasons for patient re-admissions and cropping up of concerns like pressure ulcers.

To eliminate such instances and pave way for better patient recovery, one needs to standardise the supply and intake of nutritional supplements. This can be intervened and resolved only when a standard is set for the monitoring and supply of adequate supplements to patients.

And what could be a better way than resorting to the use of electronic health records. Acting as a centralised portal for doctors and clinicians to retrieve patient information for better diagnosis, an EHR can also act as a platform for dietitians and nutritionists to plan the intake of adequate supplements for health and recovery. An EHR has all the crucial information and metrics required for wellness deliverance and this access to dietitians will help them plan the right supplements at varied stages of patient recovery.

Generally, a dietitian would need the following parameters to make a better and an informed chart on patient recovery and an electronic health record provides with all the necessary information on –

  • Demographics of the person
  • Medication
  • Supplements being provided
  • Requirement of special supplements
  • Symptoms and diagnosis
  • Side effects or allergies to certain medications and supplements

This association of a dietitian or a nutritionist with an EHR also acts as a liaison between them and doctors for coordination on patient health improvement statuses and modification of nutrition intake depending on each stage. During medication, it is highly likely that patients lose or gain weight invariably, eat in meagre portions and become stressful. Access to the electronic health records of patients allows the dietitians to anticipate the requirement of diverse types of supplements, forecast a recovery chart and tailor the intake of supplements for each patient they take care of.

One of the major concerns dietitians face with patients is they don’t come back for follow up sessions for recovery monitoring. It is a general mentality of patients to do away with either medication or nutritional intake once they reach a particular stage of recovery. All that dietitians or nutrition suppliers want is the patients to be in touch with them. The EHR makes it easy for them to know the status of the patients frequently and patients can consult their dietitian anytime with better information on their health and information on diagnosis.

MLM (Multilevel Marketing) companies are also some of the finest providers of organic nutritional supplements and one of the most practical ways they can reach out to their audiences is by associating with an EHR platform. The association would make it easy to provide timely access to nutrition supplements and come back for recommendations and resupply at frequent intervals. To personally know how EHR.Network can help you, get in touch with us for a conversation.

Categories
Knowledge

Understanding Clinical Information Management – Essential differences among HIS, PHR, EMR & EHR

When it comes to a few certain technical terms in the field of healthcare, there seems to be a few misconceptions and confusions. With the onset of digital technology, a number of new technologies and terms have cropped up in healthcare IT further adding to the misconceptions. Today, a lot of people confuse between an HIS, PHR, EMR and EHR. For most of us, these invariably mean more or less the same thing. However, they are not. These terms are often misinterpreted and considered interchangeable. There are subtle differences among them and these subtleties are what define their role in healthcare delivery.

This article is all about bringing to light the differences among the three distinct concepts and helping you leverage the potential of each for your Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy wellness centers. Read on.

Personal Health Record(PHR)

PHR is a tool to collect, track and share past and current information about your health or the health of someone in your care. Your PHR may save you the money and inconvenience of repeating routine medical tests and give medical care providers more insight into your personal health. It can further help you become responsible for making decisions about your health.

However, please be aware that medical records(EHR & EMR) and your personal health record (PHR) are not the same thing. Medical records contain information about your health compiled and maintained by your healthcare providers. A PHR is information about your health compiled and maintained by you. You can read more about PHRs here.

Hospital Information System(HIS)

On the other hand, an HIS stands for Hospital Information System! This is a more clearly understood concept when compared to EHRs, EMRs & PHRs and revolves basically around hospital management and optimized administration. Hospital Information Systems involve computers and applications for the management of a clinic, nursing home or a hospital’s everyday operations. Modern systems allow for automation of several redundant tasks and there are several providers of this platform. Some of the functionalities of a hospital information system include the following:

  • Patient registration and scheduling of appointments
  • Billing
  • Manage materials and supply-chain with 3rd party vendors and dispensaries
  • Laboratory, cardiology and radiology operations
  • Handle staffing and HR functions
  • Hospital CRM functions such as send automated emails on appointments, newsletters and more

Electronic Medical Record(EMR)

EMR stands for Electronic Medical Record. An EMR is the digital version of the paper charts related to health you find in clinics and doctors’ offices. An Electronic Medical Record contains details on the information collected by doctors and practicing physicians during your session of diagnosis and is used by them to deliver better healthcare services.

EMRs are designed to help the healthcare organization improve their internal record management and provide easy access them during ongoing care and repeat patient visits. EMR data is not inter-operable with EMR of the same person from other applications and so is not very helpful for the long term health management of the person

Electronic Health Record(EHR)

If you didn’t know, EHR stands for Electronic Health Record and is something that goes beyond an EMR. An EHR manages your health information following open standards (country specific and International) and hece the data from different EHR applications are inter-operable. EHRs can potentially contain lifelong details and information about a patient but differ from EMR in the fact that they contain reports from all clinicians or doctors involved in the patient’s healthcare.

EHRs allow not just one doctor or physician to use the information mentioned in the report for diagnosis purposes but anyone with who you intend to share the report or have access to your report. It is most effective when implemented as a centralized portal on the cloud (like the EHR.Network) that doctors and clinicians can have a comprehensive look at your medical data and get insights on earlier diagnosis, treatment agendas, scan reports and charts, side effects, blood pathogens and more. We have dedicated an entire blog post on EHRs and you can find the article here.

So, these were the basic differences among the four key terms you should know for your clinic or wellness resort. Interchanging technical terms can give rise to consequences and confusions and to stay clear of those, it’s better to know the basics. If you need any assistance in setting up an EHR in your hospital, clinic or wellness center, you can get in touch with us. You can also contact us to book a demo session of AyushEHR, the EHR solution for Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy.

Categories
Knowledge

Top 5 Advantages of Electronic Health Record(EHR) Solutions

On our previous post, we saw an introduction to what an electronic health record is all about. And in this post, we would shed more light on the advantages of electronic health record solutions. While EHRs have been widely adopted in Western medicine, their full potential is yet to be completely leveraged by Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy healthcare practices to deliver a comprehensive wellness service that will significantly improve a person’s health. So if you are clinician practising Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy and looking to improving healthcare standards, here is why you should incorporate electronic health record solutions into your system.

Precise Documented Information

With electronic health records, you have with you precisely documented information about your patients and their medical history. With digitized documents, you are making it easier for your patients and other clinicians to retrieve patient information regardless of location and time. With EHR, the chances of errors caused by human intervention or word-of-mouth communication are also averted. Besides, electronic health records allow doctors and wellness practitioners to easily look into patients’ health history instantly and look at any information such as allergies or side-effects that would stall or impact their treatment agendas. Sandhya Pruthi – the Managing Director of Mayo Clinic, Minnesota, claims that with EHR, she could easily pull up test results in an exam room with her patients. She also adds that she could instantly verify if they have had past procedures or exams and even show her patients the imaging of theirs tests and screenings.

Better Diagnosis

Being a centralized portal, electronic health records keep updating after any change is made by clinicians to a patient’s health record. This allows doctors or other clinicians to get a comprehensive look at the patient’s medical history and diagnose diseases better and come up with more effective treatment agendas. When a wellness practitioner looks at an EHR, he or she could easily understand the procedures undergone by the patient without having to rely on patient’s oral information or a paperwork report that could be obsolete. This immensely reduces the chances of errors in treatment practices.

Data Analytics

Electronic health records are all about consistent updation of medical data and patient record.
This constant generation of data allows for effective analysis of the data to come up with both prescriptive and predictive responses. Preventive health is one of the major advantages provided by EHR solutions, wherein clinicians can easily tell of any potential outbreaks during epidemics such as flu or if it is a right time for health screenings, preventive therapy or more instances.

Reduced Medical Errors

It is scary to think about an error in the field of medicine and that is one of the major reasons why electronic health records are like the optimum solutions. Paperwork and files can be easily lost or misplaced giving rise to misplaced patient information. Or, instances as simple as illegible handwriting can also stand as a barrier in delivering the right healthcare treatment. Situations like these are at a greater chance of giving rise to medical errors, which could be life-altering for patients and practitioners. EHR tremendously reduce the chances of such occurrences, paving way for a smooth healthcare deliverance. Regardless of the number of consultations from different doctors and clinicians, information on these digital records is instantly updated with precise patient information.

Streamline workflow

One of the biggest advantages for owners of hospitals and clinics lies in the operations and management of the place. By going digital, electronic health records make it easy for you to streamline your tasks and workflow processes and clear clutter in your premises by replacing paper with digital records stored on the cloud. It is also time-saving as your clinicians can now spend more time on analyzing patient data rather than filling them out. Efficiency of operations can be significantly increased and there can be clarity in day-to-day operations.

These are the preliminary sets of advantages electronic health records offer to patients and hospitals. To know more about how electronic health records can be beneficial, check out this quick video. To know how AyushEHR can personally benefit your resort, hospital or clinic get in touch with us today.

Categories
Ayurveda & EHR Knowledge Yoga & EHR

Compelling Reasons Why Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy Needs to adopt Information Technology

Globally, there are over 500,000 practitioners of Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy. This statistics makes it one of the most prevalent systems of medicine and in India, its significance is something phenomenal. Despite its prominence, a more digitized and streamlined way patients’ data is stored, managed and retrieved is still missing. On the contrary, western medicine have integrated chests of patient information systems that is available to clinicians and doctors, allowing them to virtually know an individual’s medical record. However, Ayurveda still awaits a call for integrated technologies and solutions. On this article, we will delve into why Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy needs to adopt information technology to bring about significant changes.

The 3 most widely used tools in healthcare and their advantages are as below

Hospital Information System(HIS)

One of the major advantages of integrating HIS with Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy healthcare practices is that it paves way for seamless everyday operation. It allows clinicians to set reminders, tasks and alerts for patients and enable better engagement with them. For instance, sending out appointment reminders a day prior to the actual date, send follow-ups through emails or phone calls, reminders to schedule appointment for patients’ next visit, and more.

Besides, it also fosters a better supply-chain ecosystem, where your inventory of supplements are better monitored and maintained. HIS solutions are designed to keep track of your item dispenses and intimate you the expiring and low-on-stock items. These are the two major aspects when it comes to managing a clinic and those that require a lot of paperwork and efforts. HIS can give you real-time information on reports such as aging reports, summaries of supplies dispensed, reports on your services, trends, customer account statements and more.

Digitizing them and bringing all of them to one single portal makes operations interoperable. It also betters your engagement with patients by allowing you to send newsletters, information on any upcoming events, research or promotions, birthday emails and more.

Electronics Health Records (EHR)

EHR is a digital repository of patients’ health record. When you integrate a solution for your Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy healthcare practices, you create an environment for improved practice performances and measurement of key metrics. The analytics modules allow you to find meaningful insights on patients’ record and give you real-time information on the progress of treatment, trends in key diagnostic parameters, overall disease trends across patients and also decision support tools.

Customer Portal

Having a patient portal is inevitable today. It not just ensures a better healthcare practice but also allows you to formulate better treatment agendas and plans. Since this is centralized, any clinician or a practitioner of Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy can retrieve a patient’s health record and plan out medications and treatments. With the massive chunks of information on the patient in hand, the clinicians would also be able to make better and informed decisions and see trends through the solution’s analytics portal.

When information technology is rightly incorporated, you will experience better management of data and operations and find aspects for improvement in administration, patient engagement and healthcare practices. The technology is efficient, cost-effective and is inevitable today that will go on to become revolutionary tomorrow. With the renewed focus once again on Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy as mainline healthcare practices, it is important that the proponents leverage technology to ride this wave and take their crafts far and wide.

AyushEHR is a standards compliant EHR with integrated customer portal. To get a personalized advantages list of how an EHR and customer portal can work wonders for your organization, speak or get in touch with us.

Categories
Knowledge

A Beginner’s Guide to Electronic Health Record

 

One of the primary goals of tech revolutions is to offer convenience to people. Apart from making way for elevated and sophisticated lifestyles, ideal evolution of technology is where it works at the grass root levels and makes lives better for those who are in need of it. Driver-less cars, smart refrigerators and automated homes are essential but smart farming, autonomous power grids and digitized healthcare are necessities. Thanks to the advancements recently, healthcare has been significantly influenced by technology and one such offspring is an EHR or the Electronic Health Record.

What is an EHR?

In simple words, an Electronic Health Record is a digital version of your health record or your medical history. Instead of storing the data on paper and retrieving it during medical consultations, an electronic health record offers you the convenience of saving your data digitally over the cloud. Since it gets stored on a centralized portal, it becomes easy for clinics and doctors to retrieve your medical history and proceed with diagnosis or healthcare.

One of the most significant advantages of the electronic health record include the inclusion of data such as the following:

  • Radiology reports
  • Laboratory data
  • Immunizations
  • Past individual medical history
  • Vital Signs
  • Medications
  • Earlier Diagnosis
  • Progress notes
  • Demographics and more

Besides, the electronic health record also automates the flow of data and helps clinics streamline their workflows. Apart from healthcare, the health record fosters the evolution of a clinic’s operational procedures including data-driven decision making, outcomes reporting, quality management and more.

The Pros of Electronic Health Records

Apart from allowing doctors, physicians and clinics to deliver better diagnostic services to patients, electronic health records allows for improved healthcare by significantly reducing the occurrence of medical errors. With accurate and most recent data in hand, there is little scope for errors or misconceptions in diagnosis.

Besides, electronic health records also save significant time and strain of patients by eliminating the need to scan or undergo tests again and preventing any delays in treatments. With a streamlined electronic health record in hand, you can ensure you receive systematic services regardless of which clinic or specialist doctor you intend to get diagnosed from. With the record, the doctor will quickly take up the role of a ‘family doctor’ by knowing your medical history and recent ailments, allowing him or her to offer better diagnosis.

Electronic Health Records in Indigenous Medical Practices

Generally, electronic health records have been tested and applied in conventional medical practices. Little efforts have been taken in applying the benefits of electronic health records in the indigenous medical practices such as Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy. These medical practices require as much medical information about a patient as clinics do and for better and informed treatments, clinics practicing them require a centralized portal to retrieve the piece of information.

Naturopathy centers, Yogic healing centers and Ayurveda clinics can opt for electronic health records systems to deliver better services to individuals or patients who prefer the treatment practice and develop better treatment agendas for their wellbeing.

With an effective electronic health record in place, resorts, clinics, hospitals and medical colleges can work on delivering better healthcare treatments to patients and guests. To know how it can benefit your clinic or business, get in touch and we will help you out.

Categories
Knowledge

Electronic Health Records(EHR): The way forward series – I

Standards compliant Electronic Health Records(EHR) platform

Each of us has experienced the frustration of waiting for long periods at Healthcare Facilities when we or our dear ones are not feeling their best. Finally, when we do get into the consultation room, a sense that the doctor is not giving 100% attention to us and the assessment may not be well thought through, nags us. Well! Statistics indicate that 1 out of 8 diagnosis may be faulty!* Who is to be blamed, the doctor? Supply demand situation? Non-Systematic Clinical Processes? Fee based Healthcare? Lack of Family Doctor?

Less than two decades ago, we had a family doctor who knew our family and personal health history, practised general medicine and had a handful of patients.Today a doctor spends around 5 minutes per patient, instructs test routinely, skims through the test report and comes up with an assessment. To add to this, the relationship between the doctor and patient is limited to these brief encounters.

We can only wish for a Family Doctor! With global trends and nuclear families, we have to move forward and find a sustainable solution. Electronic Health Records (EHR) with ownership resting with the individual is a perpetual solution. Such an EHR is not linked to a particular Healthcare provider or system of medicine; complying to international standards, access anytime and anywhere and has multilingual support.

OpenEHR, an open international forum defines a healthcare model that will remain relevant with evolving clinical practises and health data. Government of India has published EHR Minimal Data Set (MDS) in August 2013 and is in the process of updating the same by 2016 end.

EHR.Network from Healthelife Ventures is an Cloud EHR Platform that empowers individuals to create, store and manage their Health data perpetually. It is OpenEHR compliant and supports MDS prescribed by GOI.

An Application enables a doctor to view the patient persistent information that includes current health condition, medication, allergies etc., This will enable the Physician to get factual information of the patient. Details of all health interventions would be accessible. The doctor could enter details of current intervention in easy to use interface. Scope to create a draft entry and submit later is provided. Persistent information may be updated by the doctor. Diagnostic Test Reports created as EHR are also visible to the doctor.
The individual remains in control at all times. The doctor is well supported with Decision Support that analysis computable patient health data.

EHR.Network, an anytime, anywhere E Family Doctor.

Categories
Knowledge

Health and Wellness trends around the world and the emergence of Electronic Health Records(EHR)

Standards compliant Electronic Health Records(EHR) platform

Pace of development is increasing across the world thanks to greater innovations that affect every facet of human life. This has great impact on the way people live, work and take care of their health.

As the society is moving more and more into an information driven one, physical work is getting replaced with mental work. This, while reducing the physical exercise that is required to keep our body health, is also increasing our mental stress, causing the emergence of a new phenomenon called lifestyle diseases – diabetes, hypertension, depression, mental stress etc.

With the emergence of increased instances of lifestyle related conditions, modern healthcare is becoming more about managing these conditions and less about treatment of diseases caused by pathogens and infections. Such health condition management is generally of long duration, often lifelong and requires the collection, management and analysis of the person’s lifelong health information and it’s trends.

Many countries across the world have recognized this need for lifelong clinical information of their citizens and have implemented Electronic Health Records (EHR) policies & guidelines. EHR is defined as “A person’s Lifelong Holistic Health History, intended to be used for improvement of the overall health and wellbeing of the person”.

2016 Report of the third global survey on eHealth by World Health Organization(WHO) reports that “There has been steady growth in the adoption of national EHR systems over the past 15 years – and a 46% global increase in the past five years”. Currently the countries with the highest EHR adoption rates are: Norway (98 percent), Netherlands (98 percent), United Kingdom (97 percent), New Zealand (97 percent), Australia (92 percent), Germany (82 percent), United States (69 percent), France (67 percent), Canada (56 percent) and Switzerland (41 percent). EHR adoption is gathering pace and continues to expand around the world.

Indian government has initiated the process of EHR adoption with the publication of its EHR standard in August 2013 and second revision in December 2016. It has also initiated the formation of National e-Health Authority (NEHA), to manage the EHR policies and guidelines for the country.

EHR policies and guidelines are intended to help agencies working on improving overall health and wellness of people. By being EHR compliant, they can ensure that their work complements the other health related activities of the person and provide them lifelong benefit. Further, by systematically managing and analysing the health data generated during their work, the agency can bring in systematic improvement to their programs and make them more effective. Such information also allows them to demonstrate the effectiveness of their work and improve participation.