What's New In Digital Health

Within the ever-expanding complexities of the healthcare system one component stands above the rest in importance: the patient. In order to provide accurate, informed care patient medical files must be as up to date as they are accessible. Discover why in spite of the latest advancements to dermatology EMR software solutions this fails to be the case along with what healthcare providers are doing to combat this crisis.

When prompted to think about what matters most to a patient’s health, their data is not likely to be at the top of your list. However, without an accurate patient profile history, dermatologists and other medical professionals are extremely hard-pressed to provide informed, evidence-based decisions. For example, think of how much harder it is for a dermatologist to accurately identify the risk of a spot when the patients family history of skin cancer has not been taken into account.

Patient Matching: A Real Concern For Dermatologists
Research demonstrates that as little as 50% of patient files are matched when information is shared across healthcare systems (primarily EMR solutions).¹ Not only does this result in wasted hours attempting to locate and re-merge patient information, it seriously jeopardize the quality of care that the patient will receive. For serious conditions such as skin cancer where the early detection and treatment of cases are essential to survival rates, this could result in loss of life. The alarming facts indicate that:

• ~70% of specialists rate the received patient referral information as poor or fair ²
• Over 400,000 lives are lost each year due to medical errors (making it the #3 killer in the U.S.)
• 3 in 10 tests are reordered because of lost results
• Patient charts cannot be located on 1 in 3 clinic visits
  
  

How Can Patient Data Remain Intact And Accessible?
At the core of this crisis is a lack of system interoperability. Defined as “the ability for software to transfer information in such a way that it is understood and retains it meaning”, interoperable EMR software should be a baseline criteria within every branch of healthcare. So why isn’t this the case?

Previously, system interoperability simply didn’t exist. As technologies have developed, cloud-based EMR software are designed with the modern dermatologist in mind. Practice management solutions such as DermEngine integrate with the world’s most popular EMR solutions. Rather than forcing medical professionals to dismantle tools they are familiar with, DermEngine seamlessly integrates with the current EMR system to act as a centralized solution for the systems.

As a result, these connected systems allow for the secure sharing of information while ensuring that all patient information is recorded on a single profile including all elements of their history, such as contact information, (dermoscopy and total body photography) images, referrals, important notes, procedures, clinical & pathology diagnoses, and reports for a truly comprehensive profile.

Conclusion
Accurate patient data is an integral part to all healthcare institutions. Unfortunately, research shows that this fails to be the case, as information becomes unreadable or lost when transferred between EMR software. As technologies continue to improve, practice management solutions such as DermEngine are working to offer integrative software designed to act as the new face of the connected systems while compiling the patient data into a single, secure and comprehensive profile. This not only allows for a streamlined care experience for patients and doctors alike, but most importantly ensures that medical professionals are able to provide well-informed medical diagnoses for optimized care outcomes.

-The MetaOptima Team

1. https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/interoperability-patient-matching-could-be-fixed-smartphone-apps-rand-says
2. https://getreferralmd.com/2016/08/30-healthcare-statistics-keep-hospital-executives-night/