What's New In Digital Health

Dermatology electronic medical record (EMR) software have changed the paradigm of patient data collection, management and storage. They have streamlined workflows and added efficiency to practices, however, their operational efficacy is still a developing area. To date, no single EMR is capable of achieving all expected tasks on its own. This article will discuss the current EMRs technical and operative challenges and how new cloud-based software versions are offering smart solutions to tackle these issues.

1. The test of timeliness and user satisfaction
One of the main challenges that EMRs have come to address is time management. Increased control over scheduling functionalities combined with a more efficient processing of patient data are expected to offer synchronized and fluid workflows for practices. However, EMR implementation can still have detrimental effects on patients’ waiting and consultation times. A 10 minutes increase in a physician’s EMR documentation processing time can have a staggering 373% increase in patient waiting time. Likewise, the overall stay period at the clinic can be bumped a 193%.¹ Evidently, efficacy is profoundly impacted by small changes.

A survey among dermatologists has expressed that an EMR that offers the potential to show an overall picture of a patient’s history linking hospital records, pathology labs and physicians is more of a current utopia than reality. More than 30% of consulted professionals coincided that the ideal EMR should have a centralized approach to sharing patient data and offer a complete interconnected integration with hospitals and administrative systems.² Realistically, doctors, non-medical staff and patients are affected by these and other practical barriers regularly, reducing the global efficacy in healthcare processes.

2. Centralized platforms and interoperability as solutions
A relatively new term in the EMR jargon, interoperability, seems to be the leading trend towards more integral and cohesive platforms. Defined as the capacity of informatic software to “understand” each other and be able to work together to improve their capabilities, interoperability has enormous potential to take efficacy to the expected levels. As a result, modern dermatology software such as DermEngine, are at the forefront of implementing a centralized system able to connect with other EMR software to exploit each platform's strongest features.  

Being part of a cloud-based approach following the SaaS model, DermEngine can act as a hub where information is collectively acquired, analyzed and stored for an integral overview of a patient’s medical history. Remote connectivity plays an active role in advancing the prompt and secure sharing of data, making EMRs safe depositories of a patient’s point of contacts with the healthcare system. Despite the challenges encountered in such approach, the efficacy needed to maintain operative workflows in practices with an increasingly high number of patients makes these software the best candidates to address current needs. Together, highly accessible best practice management software are the ideal strategy to make patient data readily available by all stakeholders involved in the healthcare system. DermEngine and the family of cloud-based dermatology EMRs are pioneering highly customized integration solutions that make interoperability a priority for improved workflow efficacy. 

Conclusion
Undeniably, EMRs have constituted a great leap in the development of more reliable systems to advance the quality of patient care offer. The utilization of technology systems to organize, manage and store patient medical histories makes physical records a distant memory. Nevertheless, as EMRs evolve and become more sophisticated, the same technology invested in them should be the driving force to create highly interconnected and interoperable platforms. The efficacy test will only be passed when these systems can unhinderly serve patients and doctors achieve best dermatology care outcomes.

1-https://academic.oup.com
2-https://ieeexplore.ieee.org