Electronic health records for better health in the lower- and middle-income countries

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 751-767
Author(s):  
Manish Kumar ◽  
Javed Mostafa
Keyword(s):  
Electronic Health Records ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Digital Health ◽  
Information Architecture ◽  
Health Records ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Middle Income Countries ◽  
Use Of Data ◽  
Electronic Health

PurposeElectronic health records (EHR) can enable collection and use of data for achieving better health both at the patient and population health levels. The World Health Organization's (WHO) draft 2019 four-year global digital health strategy aims to “improve health for everyone, everywhere by accelerating the adoption of appropriate digital health” and EHRs are key to achieving better health goals. Despite the fact that EHRs can help to achieve better health, there is lack of evidence explaining national and sub-national EHR development in the limited resource settings.Design/methodology/approachWe conducted a landscape study to describe the EHR development and use in the low- and middle-income countries for achieving better health. We reviewed literature from four scientific databases and analyzed gray literature identified in consultation with 17 international experts.FindingsThe findings of this literature review are presented in three subsections. The first two subsections describe key stakeholders for development of national and sub-national EHR and health information architecture which includes status of ehealth foundations, EHR, and sub-systems in the country. The third subsection presents and discusses key challenges related to sustainability of national and sub-national EHRs. The findings in these three subsections are further explored through examples of health information flow in Uganda, and electronic medical record/EHR implementation in Sierra Leone and Malawi. These examples briefly describe stakeholders, information architecture, and sustainability challenges.Originality/valueThis paper fills an important research gap and clearly explains the urgent research need to build context-specific EHR development models to enable use of data for better health.

scholarly journals A Landscape Study Highlights the Urgent Need for Evidence Based Strategies to Enable Electronic Health Records Integration in the National Healthcare Systems of Low- and Middle-Income Countries

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 140-142
Author(s):  
Joanne M. Muellenbach
Keyword(s):  
Electronic Health Records ◽  
Grey Literature ◽  
Healthcare Systems ◽  
Health Records ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Middle Income Countries ◽  
National Healthcare ◽  
Electronic Health ◽  
International Experts ◽  
Low And Middle Income

A Review of: Kumar, M., & Mostafa, J. (2020). Electronic health records for better health in lower- and middle-income countries: A landscape study. Library Hi Tech, 38(4), 751–767. https://doi.org/10.1108/LHT-09-2019-0179  Abstract Objective – To identify how low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) approached the development of national and subnational electronic health records (EHRs) and to understand the challenges related to EHR research priorities and sustainability. Design – Landscape study consisting of a review of the scientific literature, country-focused grey literature, and consultation with international experts.   Setting – Hospitals and healthcare systems within LMICs.  Subjects – The 402 publications retrieved through a systematic search of four scientific electronic databases along with 49 publications found through a country-focused analysis of grey literature and 14 additional publications found through consultation with two international experts.  Methods – On 15 May 2019, the authors comprehensively searched four major scientific databases: Global Health, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. They also searched the grey literature and repositories in consultation with country-based international digital health experts. The authors subsequently used Mendeley reference management software to organize and remove duplicate publications. Peer-reviewed publications that focused on developing national EHRs within LMIC healthcare systems were included for the title and abstract screening. Data analysis was mainly qualitative, and the results were organized to highlight stakeholders, health information architecture (HIA), and sustainability. Main Results – The results were presented in three subsections. The first two described critical stakeholders for developing national and subnational EHRs and HIA, including country eHealth foundations, EHRs, and subsystems. The third section presented and discussed pressing challenges related to EHR sustainability. The findings of the three subsections were further explored through the presentation of three LMIC case studies that described stakeholders, HIA, and sustainability challenges. Conclusion – The results of this landscape study highlighted the scant evidence available to develop and sustain national and subnational EHRs within LMICs. The authors noted that there appears to be a gap in understanding how EHRs impact patient-level and population outcomes within the LMICs. The study revealed that EHRs were primarily designed to support monitoring and evaluating health programs focused on a particular disease or group of diseases rather than common health problems. While national governments and international donors focused on the role of EHRs to improve patient care, the authors highlighted the urgent need for further research on the development of EHRs, with a focus on efficiency, evaluation, monitoring, and quality within the national healthcare enterprise.

Safe Use of Electronic Health Records and Health Information Technology Systems

2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 177-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles R. Denham ◽  
David C. Classen ◽  
Stephen J. Swenson ◽  
Michael J. Henderson ◽  
Thomas Zeltner ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Electronic Health Records ◽  
Health Information Technology ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Health Records ◽  
Electronic Health ◽  
Technology Systems

scholarly journals Designing Decentralized Ledger Technology for Electronic Health Records

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vikram Dhillon
Keyword(s):  
Electronic Health Records ◽  
Open Source ◽  
Digital Health ◽  
Health Records ◽  
Distributed Ledger ◽  
Distributed Ledger Technology ◽  
Electronic Health

No abstract available. Editor’s note: A proposal to implement distributed ledger technology for electronic health records is outlined here. The rationale for integration of distributed ledgers in the healthcare domain is introduced, followed by a discussion of the features enabled by the use of a blockchain. An open source implementation of a distributed ledger is then presented. The article concludes with an examination of opportunities and challenges ahead in deploying blockchains for digital health.

Two Important Topics for 2012: Electronic Health Records and mHealth

2012 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. Fox Brent ◽  
G. Felkey Bill
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Electronic Health Records ◽  
Health Information Technology ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Health It ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Health Records ◽  
Electronic Health

As the new year begins, we like to reflect on where health information technology (IT) has been and where it is going. We are not fond of rehashing the minutia regarding every event that occurred in the health IT domain, so we will not spend our time and space presenting an exhaustive review. We will, however, touch on the continuing efforts surrounding electronic health records (EHRs). We will also focus forward in discussing an emerging area that we are closely following.

Abstract 2573: Cancer diagnoses and patient use of electronic health records: results from the health information national trends survey

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra J. Greenberg ◽  
Angela Falisi ◽  
Lila J. Finney Rutten ◽  
Wen-Ying Sylvia Chou ◽  
Richard P. Moser ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Electronic Health Records ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Health Records ◽  
Electronic Health ◽  
National Trends ◽  
Patient Use
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