A common goal for healthcare enterprises around the world is to provide the highest quality of care to their patients. As a result, telemedicine software companies are driven to provide solutions designed to support healthcare providers in offering connected, streamlined care.
A benchmark survey performed by REACH Health, a telemedicine software company, found that healthcare professionals are primarily considering three main criteria to better serve patients:1
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Improve patient outcomes (diagnosis accuracy)
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Increase patient engagement & satisfaction
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Provide patient convenience
One approach that addresses all three of these criteria is to implement a combination of system-wide electronic medical record (EMR) and telemedicine software, which may alternatively be referred to as an “enterprise approach.”1
1. Enterprise Approach
Given the considerable influence of healthcare enterprises, their operating standards significantly impact everyday practices, and even impose regulations to which smaller providers must conform. Therefore, the widespread adoption of a centralized platform based on those standards is one of two key factors towards ensuring connected care across practices and care centres of all sizes. The other essential element is ensuring that technology within the centralized platform is interoperable - in other words, it is able to communicate with other technology without any compatibility issues.
The enterprise approach is a standardization initiative that aims to manage and coordinate departmental and locational resources in a centralized EMR system. In order for it to reach its highest potential, the approach must be implemented early-on within a healthcare system using advanced information technologies to support interoperability across a variety of medical networks.
Unfortunately, many healthcare enterprises are trailing behind in adopting these technologies, and in effect, are without sufficient interoperability capabilities. As a consequence, enterprises have had to overcome major challenges to guarantee quality and informed care to their patients.
2. DermEngine Addressing Enterprise Challenges
Modern dermatology software can play a pivotal role in contributing to this improved care. Such is the case of DermEngine, an intelligent dermatology platform that provides advanced teledermatology services to leverage the potential of remote connectivity and interoperability.
Communication
Enterprise workflows are intricate processes. Due to their large-scale operations, traditional structures are prone to periodic breakdowns leading to disconnected care alongside a variety of obstacles. For example, single location enterprises such as regional hospitals that lack effective interdisciplinary communications may face a reduction in their patient-serving capabilities and satisfaction. Similarly, enterprise models that span across a nation may encounter strategic workflow implementation issues due to differences in geographic location and specific market characteristics.
Modern dermatology EMR software such as DermEngine are enabling clear and reliable interdepartmental and remote communication by providing secure centralized data documentation and sharing. Similarly, the cloud-based nature of these software can significantly improve communication with patients and they are powerful platforms to offer reliable store-and-forward teledermatology services. As a result, DermEngine’s effective interacting capabilities are able to reduce the risk of medical errors within an enterprise. With official reports accounting for over 1,500 patient deaths and a $1.7B loss due to malpractice in a five-year period,2 reliable dedicated cloud-based software solutions that can bring improved interoperability are an urgent need.
Adoption of Interoperability
Over the last ten years, EMR software have intended to redesign health enterprise workflows to become more efficient and cost effective while better serving patients. The 2009 HITECH Act made an attempt to push healthcare providers to adopt EMR software, however, interoperability was overlooked, causing inconsistencies in patient data across a variety of medical platforms. Many healthcare professionals feared inaccurate EMR integration, and abandoned the idea altogether - sticking with their restricted telehealth systems. Interestingly, a study which monitored EMR adoption progress projected that sophisticated support applications and EMR interoperability functions will take until 2035 for the majority of U.S. hospitals to become immersed in a successful EMR ecosystem.3
Healthcare providers have become aware that patients are likely to have records located in multiple EMR platforms, and therefore recognize that interoperability is a key component to providing high quality care in a successful nationwide EMR system. Dermatologists are among medical professionals who have begun implementing interoperable dermatology EMR software such as DermEngine to seamlessly migrate and integrate established patient data and records from previously disconnected sources.
Conclusion
Medical professionals and healthcare institutions share the aspiration of optimizing patient care. Although enterprises have been facing challenges in their operations due to the ineffective adoption of health technologies, over 60% of healthcare executives and professionals are either currently using or in the process of transitioning to an enterprise approach in their daily practices.1 Modern EMR software, such as DermEngine, constitute an excellent solution in the dermatology field to create high quality patient outcomes by improving communication using interoperable cloud-based technologies. As practices of all sizes continue to seek scalable health systems, DermEngine will be able to support and enhance their ambitious vision of creating sustainable, connected services for improved patient care around the world.
-The MetaOptima Team
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Sources
1-https://www.healthleadersmedia.com
2-https://www.beckershospitalreview.com
3-https://www.jmir.org