Electronic Patient Records (EPRs) have to some extent been used in medicine for many years. With the increasing presence of computers at home and at work, there is a great deal of scope for the development of electronic patient records. There are many issues related to EPRs and a greater number of reasons why they have in the past been limited in their use.
Disadvantages: startup and running costs, training, staff motivation, obsolesence, poor functionality (time wasting), possibility for abuse, risk of loss of confidentiality.
Advantages: Faster and simpler access to notes (particularly in A&E departments), maintenance of more detailed notes over longer periods, reduced staffing levels, ease of booking, investigation orders and results, health updates, reminders, integration with telemedicine, ease of integration of non-hospital based care, increased ability to collect public health information.
The links below should help you to find out more about these issues, where possible I have tried to give priority to sites of relevance to the UK:
The Medical Records Institute have information for
healthcare providers and users, the bias is towards the USA.
Demonstrations
- This site has demonstrations of implementations of EPRs in the USA
The Medical
Informatics Handbook is relevant not only to Electronic Patient Records but also to other applications of
computers in medicine.
The International Medical Informatics Association
have working groups in EPRs and other areas
Details of some EPR projects in the UK - LINK DOWN!