Summary
Objectives
To provide an overview of trends in research, developments and implementations of
the computerized patient record (CPR) of the last two years.
Methods
We surveyed the medical informatics literature, spanning the years 2004-2005, focusing
on publications on CPRs.
Results
The main trends revealed were: 1) the development of technologies to realize privacy
and security goals or remote data entry and access to CPRs; 2) investigations into
how to enhance the quality and reuse of CPR data; 3) the development and evaluation
of decision support functions to be integrated with CPRs; 4) evaluations of the impact
of CPRs on clinicians, patients, clinical work settings and patient outcomes; and
5) the further development and use of standards to move towards shared electronic
health records (EHRs).
Conclusion
The CPR is playing a growing part in medical informatics research and evaluation studies,
but the goal of establishing a comprehensive lifelong EHR is still a long way off.
In moving forward to EHRs, convergence of EHR standards seems required to realize
true interoperability of health care applications. User acceptance of present-day
CPRs (for all categories of users) and compatibility with work patterns has not been
achieved yet, and can only be realized by giving these goals high priority. This will
require substantial resources for in-depth work flow analysis, development and evaluation
of CPRs. Besides this, the implementation of effective CPRs asks for health care organizations
that are willing to invest in new developments and to contribute to evaluation studies,
to further improve CPRs’ functionalities and enhance their use in practice.
Haux R, Kulikowski C, editors. IMIA Yearbook of Medical Informatics 2006.
Keywords
Medical records systems, computerized - Computer security - Decision support systems,
clinical - Evaluation studies - Health informatics, standardization