A secure and expandable electronic patient record system using web-based technology

Abstract

Introduction: In its 2000 report regarding medical errors, the Quality Interagency Coordination Task Force highlighted the unacceptably high rate of errors in health care. The report recognized that information technology (IT) offers a tremendous opportunity to reduce errors and recommended the adoption of electronic patient records (EPRs). However, providing EPR-enabled solutions is challenging due to the constraints of security and confidentiality imposed by the healthcare domain. Adding to the complexity is the need for healthcare organizations to exchange confidential EPRs safely across the security policy boundaries of healthcare enterprises and its partners (e.g. insurance companies).Methods: We developed an EPR system that utilizes Microsoft Web Services architecture.Results: The current system has three components: OR-Eye, OR-Med and OR-Track. The system was built using Webbased communication technology; it offers the security, stability and expendability required for a hospital EPR system. Our most developed component of the EPR system, OR-Eye, allows authorized users to view real-time and achieve intraoperative patient data wirelessly in a graphical form similar to an intraoperative anesthesia record on a variety of available devices. A unique feature of OR-Eye is a time line graphic that displays the sequence of patient and hospital actions that can be viewed in detail and strung together to form various hospital records.Conclusion: Our EPR system is secure, stable and expandable. It interfaces with our existing hospital wireless network. It has the potential to improve patient care, patient safety and hospital efficiency as well as enhance medical research and medical education.