Adoption of EHR in India

This is true that with the digitalization and passing time, EHR has been like a booming trend in healthcare and gradually it has been adopted all around several hospitals and clinics across the country, India. The Indian Government is planning to digitize health records simply by cutting down the paperwork and avoid issues related to storing, collecting, recording and managing piles of healthcare data.

Recently, the Union Minister of India, J.P. Nadda stated that the Modi Government has huge plans to build a nation-wide EHR - Electronic Health Record database system operational in all districts of the nation. The prime objective of the planning is to reduce the crunch of documenting, collecting as well as storing healthcare data of patients and in all, paperwork.

The data centralization, irrespective of any medical history of a patient is going to be so useful and leverage him/her to simply take treatment from almost anywhere, anytime without needing to carry out prescriptions, medical history and more in the form of paperwork to different parts of the country or worldwide. All the records and data will be documented digitally, using the EHR software and the proper authorization will allow anyone to access it, go through it and recommend the right treatment. It not only helps in saving paper and storing them for years for future reference but also in other ways contributing to a sustainable environment as there will be less cutting down of trees. It was also in the news and even stated by the Minister of State for Health, Anupriya Patel that the purpose of adoption of EHR is to access data of the patients along with the health advisors and doctors whenever and wherever required, irrespective of where you are at that time.

Do you want to know of the wide usage of the software at present across different health and wellness centres?. As of now, majorly, it is been used in 3 major applications as stated below.

Over time, the Indian Government is planning to move towards the adoption in interoperable 'Comprehensive Primary Healthcare' applications. The health initiative covers different aspects to consider for adoption including PHRMS - Personal Health Record Management System, Interoperable EHR system, NIN - National Identification Number for both, public and private facilities, Patient Feedback System or MeraAspatal, etc. Already, the government has begun work in executing computerized registration along with collecting EMR (Electronic Medical Record) or EHR (Electronic Health Record) of patients. This digitalization will be acting as a framework helping in interlinking hospitals. All the data, be it online registrations, appointments or diagnostic reports will be accessible and available to authenticated people to check out too. Adding to this, other benefits of digitization could be checking as well as enquiring about different facilities and services, such as the availability of blood could be ascertained online across different hospitals and faster response could be expected.

Are you wondering, what is an EHR? Standing for, Electronic Health Record, EHR is a digitized copy of the health history that was given by the health advisor or practitioner on a paper. These are patient's related data that helps others in knowing about the patient and his/her history, problems and treatment provided by a doctor, if any yet, instantly accessible only by authorized users. The latest proposal forwarded and passed on by the government is to take this a leap ahead. And it is going to involve everything including diagnosis, medical history, allergies, medications, laboratory results, immunization dates and more that is relevant. It will simply automate the entire workflow and that is going to make accessing data easier and providing the right treatment in a hassle-free and time-saving manner.

In all, the Indian Government as of now is more prone and willing towards setting up the EHR database as the healthcare data can be created and handled by relevant and authorized health advisors from any one of the health centers spread all across the country. This will assist normal people not to concern about papers and keeping documents safe anymore, and even worrying about carrying them everywhere while traveling around. Isn't it good news? Yes, indeed it is, and EHR adoption is meant for the benefit of everyone - Patients, Healthcare Industry and Environment.