A new paradigm of Electronic Health record for efficient implementation of healthcare delivery

Abstract

A radical change in technical approach is needed to achieve electronic records suitable to support an engineered system of healthcare at rural and isolated areas. The challenges that have to be faced to achieve this change are improve patient safety, improve the quality and efficiency of patient care, and reduce healthcare delivery costs at rural areas. Electronic Health record (EHR) is a much anticipated solution for this problem which gives a true lifetime, person centered medical record of a patient. The advantages of an EHR solution are apparent for both doctors and patients with improved efficiency that will facilitate the exchange of health information while lowering healthcare costs. This paper introduces the innovative concept of developing an efficient EHR in a way that effectively implements the creation, updation, maintenance, representation and transmission of the medical data. In this implementation, the static information such as identification details, lifestyle habits, etc will remain in the database and only the dynamic data such as the rapidly changing health status of the patient along with the graphical and real-time data such as cardiograph signals, pathological reports can be sent using proper transmission media to the nearest Expert Centre for immediate diagnosis. The vital data which needs to be transmitted is compressed using the suitable and efficient compression technique for reducing the time of transmission. Here medical data present in the database is modified dynamically as the health status of the person varies from episode to episode. This application acts as a bridge between skilled doctors and the rural people.