Electronic health records: Improvement to healthcare decision-making

Abstract

Effective decision-making plays an important role in promoting optimal care delivery. Factors such as availability of data, timely access to data and organised information greatly influences the quality of decision-making as illustrated in a causal loop diagram. The contribution of practice-based evidence thus aims at structuring an approach where healthcare professionals can be consistently assisted in making effective decisions during routine primary care. Through a practice-based evidence e-health scenario and a data-flow diagram of clinical systems in a public hospital from Singapore, we have identified the importance of leveraging electronic health records as ideal resources in the pursuit of improving healthcare decision-making.