Abstract
This work aims to expose the barriers which work against the satisfactory adoption and utilization of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) in Italy. Experts from six operating areas were involved where barriers associated with practical daily use of EHRs might arise. Experts disclosed different barriers in their operating areas: the low interoperability of healthcare system infrastructures in diagnostic services; the lack of systems able to represent complex processes characterized by uncertainties in hospital wards; the unsatisfactory information exchange between heterogeneous healthcare providers in territorial healthcare; the lack of models and guidelines for administration process management; the lack of Health Information engineers who are recognized as professionals in Italian hospitals; the lack of domain vocabularies and ontologies for conceptual integration in clinical communication. Our findings suggest how future solutions must be designed considering the environment of specific areas.
Highlights
The electronic health record (EHR) can be defined as a collection of all health-related documents that have been created by different care providers in a digital form
The situation of EHR implementation in Italy was not described in any of the papers selected, nor did any of them describe an operating framework representing the main working areas of healthcare where EHR data are generated, used, managed, and shared and where barriers associated with practical daily use of EHRs could arise
The above consideration led to the identification of the following six areas where we investigated the barriers to EHR adoption: 1. Diagnostic Services
Summary
The electronic health record (EHR) can be defined as a collection of all health-related documents that have been created by different care providers in a digital form. EHRs have been adopted in Italy, as well as in many other countries, in hospitals and other health providers even though different institutions use different EHR and Health Information Technology (IT) solutions. Data from laboratory devices, or from radiology or biosignal recording systems are automatically obtained and checked even if some parameters are set manually. Another benefit is related to the high storage capability that allows the physical storage of huge amounts of data. Different professionals of the healthcare process believe, in the present situation, that the EHR adoption rate and use is still low and unsatisfactory [11]
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