Realisation of the computerised patient record; relevance and unsolved problems

Abstract

Patient records are the sole source of information for all clinical activities including patient care, hospital administration, clinical education and research. For this reason, the patient data in the medical records are retrieved, transcribed, tabulated or analysed repeatedly, when need arises. However, manual processing of paper records is cumbersome and inefficient and Computerised Patient Records (CPRs) should solve the problem of inefficiency. A CPR may literally mean a medical record stored in a computer as digital data, but it implies that the data are stored with a creating structure so that they can be easily retrieved when they are needed. CPRs in the broader sense may include a system of data collection and retrieval in different clinical settings. In spite of the expectations, the full potential of CPRs has not yet been achieved. Part of it is already in daily operation in many hospitals across the world. The purpose of this paper is to review the present situation of the CPR and discuss the unsolved problems in relation to security issues. 2.