Today, digital transformation in healthcare is the buzzword; and, Electronic Health Records (EHR) and Electronic Medical Records (EMR) systems are must-haves for healthcare providers embracing digitization. These platforms play a vital role in streamlining patient information and improving care coordination. However, EHR and EMR involve significant challenges ranging from usability issues to stringent compliance requirements. Let’s take a sneak peek into the key roadblocks of creating intuitive and compliant EHR and EMR systems and how to overcome challenges in healthcare software development.
The Stumbling Blocks of EHR and EMR Software Development and ways to resolve them
1. Complex Compliance Regulations
Healthcare being one of the most regulated industries, any healthcare application must comply with industry standards and data protection laws of the region/s where the app operates. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act or HIPAA in the U.S. and General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR in Europe, are examples of regional privacy laws. Such laws have been designed to safeguard patient data and must be integrated into every healthcare software.
What are the consequences of not being compliant?
Healthcare providers not adhering to regulatory compliances are subject to hefty penalties if any data breach takes place. Here’s an example!
Anthem, one of the largest health insurance companies in the U.S., experienced a massive data breach In February 2015 that exposed the personal data of nearly 79 million people. The breach occurred when cybercriminals gained access to Anthem’s IT system through a phishing attack on an employee, allowing them to steal sensitive data over several weeks. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) investigated the breach under the HIPAA violation. Anthem agreed to a settlement of $16 million with the OCR and had to sign an agreement to implement corrective actions to improve data security and prevent future breaches. Anthem also faced multiple class-action lawsuits from affected individuals, leading to a $115 million settlement in 2017, marking it the largest data breach settlement in history for that time.
How to mitigate such challenges during health application development?
- Compliance-first approach: Implement security and privacy features like multi-factor authentication, encryption, and secure cloud storage from the onset of development.
- Automated audits: Build automated auditing tools within the system to continuously monitor and log access to patient data, enabling easy compliance checks.
- Regular updates: Stay up-to-date with changing regulations and adapt the system accordingly.
2. Ensuring Interoperability
For EHR and EMR systems to be truly effective, they must be interoperable: be able to seamlessly communicate with existing healthcare systems in a medical facility, such as laboratory systems, billing software, and other healthcare providers’ EHR/EMR platforms regardless of the platform or software used. Lack of interoperability can lead to fragmented patient data, care delays, and inefficiencies.
Overcoming the Challenge:
- Open APIs and standards: Leverage open APIs and standardized communication protocols like HL7, FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources), and DICOM to facilitate smooth data exchange between different systems.
- Modular architecture: Use a modular approach to allow easy integration with third-party applications and services, ensuring flexibility as healthcare organizations adopt new technologies.
3. Designing for User Experience
Healthcare professionals often experience frustration when using poorly designed EHR/EMR systems, which can be counterintuitive and slow. This reduces their productivity, increases the likelihood of errors, and even contributes to burnout.
Overcoming the Challenge:
- User-centered design: Engage healthcare professionals early in the design phase to understand their workflow and needs. Conduct usability testing to refine interfaces for efficiency and ease of use.
- Streamlined UI: Simplify the user interface by focusing on essential features, minimizing unnecessary clicks, and ensuring quick access to the most-used functions.
- Mobile-first design: Given the rise of mobile devices in healthcare, ensure that your system is mobile-responsive and works seamlessly across different devices.
4. Data Migration and System Integration
Healthcare organizations transitioning from paper-based records or older EMR/EHR systems face the challenge of migrating vast amounts of data. Ensuring that this data is correctly transferred, cleaned, and integrated without loss is crucial.
Overcoming the Challenge:
- Data validation tools: Build validation tools to verify the accuracy and integrity of migrated data, ensuring that essential information like patient history, medications, and test results are preserved.
- Custom migration solutions: Tailor data migration solutions to the specific needs of healthcare organizations, ensuring that legacy systems integrate smoothly with the new system.
- Testing phases: Conduct multiple testing phases during migration to identify and address potential issues before going live.
5. Maintaining System Scalability and Performance
As healthcare organizations grow and patient data increases, EHR/EMR systems need to scale while maintaining optimal performance. A sluggish system can disrupt clinical workflows and compromise care quality.
Overcoming the Challenge:
- Cloud infrastructure: Go for scalable cloud-based infrastructure, allowing the system to handle fluctuating data volumes without compromising performance.
- Load balancing and caching: Implement load balancing and caching mechanisms to manage traffic spikes and ensure that the system remains responsive, even during peak usage periods.
- Ongoing performance audits: Monitor system performance regularly and make necessary adjustments to support scalability. Ongoing performance audits: Monitor system performance regularly and make necessary adjustments to support scalability.
6. Facilitating Real-Time Data Access
Real-time data access is essential in emergency care scenarios, where clinicians need immediate access to patient information to make swift, life-saving decisions. However, balancing the need for rapid data retrieval with the complexity of handling large datasets in HER and EMR systems presents unique challenges. The data needs to be retrieved quickly without sacrificing accuracy or overwhelming the system’s resources. To address these challenges, various strategies can be employed to enhance real-time performance. However, achieving real-time performance in EHR/EMR systems while managing large data sets can be challenging.
Overcoming the Challenge:
- Optimized database management: Use advanced database management techniques, such as indexing and partitioning, to ensure that queries are processed quickly.
- Edge computing: Leverage edge computing to bring data processing closer to the point of care, reducing latency and enabling faster access to critical patient information.
- Efficient algorithms: Implement algorithms optimized for real-time data processing, reducing delays in retrieving and displaying information.
In a Nutshell
By prioritizing compliance, interoperability, user experience, data migration, scalability, and real-time access, healthcare providers can create intuitive and compliant EHR and EMR systems. Embracing new technologies and collaborating closely with healthcare experts and experienced software development professionals will ensure that these systems continue to evolve to meet the needs of modern healthcare environments.