Electronic Health Record

The Electronic Health Record (EHR) enables information about an individual to be brought together and therefore provides the opportunity for healthcare organisations to improve quality of care and patient safety.

What is an Electronic Health Record?

An Electronic Health Record (EHR) is an electronic version of a patient’s medical history that is maintained by the healthcare provider over time and may include all of the key information relevant to that person’s care.

EHR records may include a whole range of data in comprehensive or summary form, including patient demographics, medical history, medication and allergies, immunisation status, laboratory test results, radiology images, and referral information and discharge information.

Why introduce an Electronic Health Record?

The correct use of Electronic Health Records can strengthen the relationship between patients and clinicians, by enabling clinicians to make better decisions and provide better care for patients.

Timely access to information and decision support tools can help reduce medical error and hence improve quality of caree.

eHealth Interoperability Standards

International experience with the development of national EHRs highlights the complexity and challenges involved. The consensus internationally recommends an incremental step-by-step implementation strategy based around supporting a standards-based approach to exchanging medical and health information which will allow more information to be made available electronically including, for example, patient identification, medication, referrals, and discharges.

What has been done?

The Authority is working with stakeholders to define a prioritised list of areas where we will develop eHealth Interoperability Standards. We undertook a public consultation process between December 2011 and January 2012 where we received valuable feedback from a broad range of stakeholders and we have formed a Advisory Group to advise us on where we should prioritize our efforts.  The Statement of Outcomes document is available here.  We are commencing work on developing standards to support Electronic Prescribing.