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All data included in the MHRs of patients constitute
a common point of reference for usage from all medical and
administrative personnel of the organization like:
Administrative Personnel
Doctors
Nurses, Therapists and Paramedical Personnel
Clinical Labs
Department of Medical Materials and Drugs
Scientific Committees and / or Clinic Directors
Organization Management
System Administrator
Admissions Department
The tasks implemented by the above personnel via the
system, can be divided into the following broad axes:
Administrative Services
Medical Services
Management of information (MIS)
The type and level of system usage by different
departments and roles within the healthcare service provider
organization, across the three axes mentioned above, is presented at the
Tables of the following pages.
Finally, given that all organization employees work
on the same MHRs, a very significant software feature that relates to
data security and protection of use from unauthorized personnel,
is the capability to hide or disable specific fields on MHR tabs
for specific users or group of users. In this way, tasks are facilitated
since personnel views only data relevant to their specific tasks, and
the organization security policy is reinforced.
For example, the access of the nursing personnel user
group can be fixed by the System Administrator in such a way so that
when a nurse opens the MHR, he or she sees the patient name and
attendant doctor name but not other personal patient data such as
address, telephone, e.t.c., or medical data such as medical history,
e.t.c.
The workflow under the system is as follows:
As soon as the patient gets admitted by the organization, the
administrative personnel opens his or her existing MHR οr creates it -
if this does not exist - by filling his or her personnal data (name,
address, telephone, e.t.c.). In case that he or she are to get
hospitalized, the administrative personnel uses the bed management
feature of the software to automatically check bed availability and
make bed reservation for the patient.
Upon the initial, first visit with the attendant doctor, the
doctor completes the past medical history of the patient in
textual form in the MHR. This past history includes past treatments,
surgical operations, e.t.c.
The doctor also records symptoms and conducts a preliminary
diagnosis based on which he or she order clinical tests to
be conducted by the patient via the MHR. The order is accompanied by
degree of priority and any specific directions to the labs.
The Clinical lab automatically accesses this order of tests
along with all other pending tests by all other doctors of the
organization accompanied by their degree of importance. In this way
they can effectively schedule their tasks.
As soon as the patient conducts the tests, the actual test
results in the form of biosignals, images, sounds, video (i.e. ECG,
X-Rays) are automatically integrated into the patient MHR and
thus are automatically accessible by the doctor.
Based on these actual results that are accessed via the patient
MHR, the doctor conducts the diagnosis and orders a care
plan - comprising of medical treatment and pharmaceutical
prescription - again via the MHR of the system.
The actual entries of the doctor orders to the system may be
physically entered by his or her assistant and be electronically
signed by the doctor at a later point in time. So the actual
working practice of the organization is supported.
The care plan may consist of predefined sets of care actions and
services that are accompanied by the timing and frequency of
conducting each action. The organization may have predefined care
protocols, that is, complete care plans consisting of groups of
care services, for each medical case. In this way the doctor may,
either automatically choose a ready care plan, adapt it to the
particular patient or create a new one based on the patient.
Αll medical examination actual results, all diagnoses and all
treatment plans of the patient get integrated in the MHR in a
structured way and are automatically accessible in the future
by any authorized doctor in the organization.
In case that the customer gets hospitalized, paramedical and
nursing personnel automatically access all pending care plans
for patients and thus, all pending care actions and services to be
administered accompanies with patient name, room and timing. In this
way, they can effectively schedule their tasks.
The department of medical materials and drugs also
automatically accesses all pending care actions accompanied with
timing and the required medical materials and drugs to be utilized for
each care action or service. In this way, they can schedule more
effectively the ordering of new materials and drugs based on the
program of pending care plans of the organization.
The doctor can monitor specific patients' health based on advanced
monitoring profiles whereby he or she defines a set of actual
medical data or diagnoses or prescriptions, e.t.c. to be
automatically correlated via the system. This correlation may
display the patient progress over a period of time and appear in the
form of list, table or graphical presentation. If the data includes
actual medical readings, the doctor may with the press of a key,
access these actual medical readings on his or her computer monitor.
In this way, monitoring the patient gets much facilitated and the
doctor may have at his or her disposal sophisticated correlations of
all data comprising patient history.
All care services provided to the patient are automatically
charged and processed based on any insurance scheme that the
patient may have with any affiliated insurance organization. The
organization may, thus, issue automatically insurance clearance
reports for any affiliated insurance institution.
Scientific committees or clinic directors
may conduct clinical studies by
correlating anonymous actual medical information selected by
themselves.
Managers of the organization may issue effectiveness and
quality statistical reports that measure the effectiveness and quality
of specific care services, departments, types of patient, e.t.c. or
any other parameter they select
All of the above functions may be implemented even if different
departments of people of the organization are located in different
physical locations. For example, a doctor of the organization may
access his or her patients' MHRs and order medical tests from his
or her home PC. The system will record the order and automatically
transfer it to the Clinical Labs as if this order was given from the
doctor's office at the organization. Additionally, the doctors of the
organization may cooperate on the same medical information with
medical experts in other areas, cities or even countries in a
structured and documented way.
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