Significant progress is being made in the clinical adoption of electronic records in hospitals, regions, clinics, communities and jurisdictions across Canada. The goal of such adoption is to enable continuing improvements in patient care quality, safety and effectiveness at a time when the healthcare system faces increasing performance, capacity and sustainability pressures. We know that transformative changes involving the implementation of new information systems and technologies do not occur overnight – adoption is a journey and the realization of the full benefits of our investments will require sustained effort, innovation and continuous learning for health informatics professionals along with our clinical colleagues.
Continued e-Health investment will also be required, and our health informatics community will be increasingly challenged to provide evidence supporting these investments. Concurrent with many other major challenges across the health system, there is an important need to measure both our progress in achieving e-Health adoption and the clinical value and patient benefits that are being achieved from e-Health use.
Traditional approaches to reporting systems adoption, based on the numbers of users, are no longer enough; the level of clinical use is a matter of much interest, for the patient and provider of care and for CIOs, healthcare managers and policy makers. E-Health adoption, which encompasses clinical information, communication and supporting technology solutions, is most often observed through the implementation and use of electronic records. The adoption of such records is being measured to provide insight into the value and contribution of those records to improving the healthcare of Canadians and the capability of the healthcare delivery system.
Models of adoption of electronic records provide a means to measure, benchmark, assess and report on e-Health utilization and maturity. The EMR Adoption Model (EMRAM) of HIMSS Analytics™ is one well-known example of such a model.
Full article
Newsham, Don; Gardner, Neil; Lee, Lydia, ElectronicHealthcare, 10(3), e15-e18
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