Five features missing from most EHRs

The following article appeared recently on the on the Healthcare IT News mobile section of the HIMSS website.

“Five features missing from most EHRs"
While EHRs are increasingly essential for healthcare providers, their efficacy can be constricted by the nature of their design, their use and the interpretation of data.
Jerry Buchanan, Program Manager and Scrum Master at eMids Technologies, Inc., an IT and BPO consulting company, weighs in on some features that are missing from EHRs:”
1. Information, not dataWhile EHRs hold data, that's not the same as holding information, Buchanan notes. Data needs to be converted into relevant information to be of practical use. However, there's also the possibility that EHRs can get overloaded with information. The goal, Buchanan says, is technology that organizes data in a way that assists healthcare providers most efficiently and effectively in making clinical decisions. This includes EHRs capable of providing alerts and alarms about patient conditions, given to caregivers in real time.
2. Comprehensive health history
Buchanan says that clinical data is usually entered into an EHR after a health episode. He notes that a history of recorded episodes is not the same as an overview of someone's health history. Some health systems are beginning to change this feature, propelled by the needs of chronic disease management, Buchanan says. Ultimately, it may be the standard for all patients.
3. Information tailored for various users
Who is the audience for the EHR's information? Buchanan says information is most useful when it matches the needs of various recipients. For example, a cardiologist, a primary care physician and a nurse might have different needs when it comes to the type of information and the level of detail they seek about a patient. Ideally, an EHR would be configured to the needs of the individual end-user.
4. Tracking the transition of care
Appropriate patient care is not static -- it must flow from one caregiver to another, from one facility to another. An EHR works better for a patient if it includes features that track tasks -- such as giving medications, monitoring conditions and administering medical tests -- to completion, and then reassigns them, if necessary.
5. Patient-side management of information
Buchanan says the ultimate EHR would give the patient -- the consumer -- the ability to manage just what health-related information (HRI) is available to which practitioners.

Referencing each of the topics listed by Jerry Buchanan I have listed my thoughts regarding each item.
1. Information, not data - This is of course the age old pursuit – but is acute and especially poignant in healthcare - to create or harvest knowledge and actionable information from data often urgently – and in real-time. This issue is then of course of particular concern to healthcare professionals. The body of data and information relevant to the care and treatment of a given patient can be immense and even overwhelming and as stated, at times urgent. The patient’s life may hang in the balance as data is converted to something useful for creating and managing a potentially lifesaving intervention or care strategy.
2. Comprehensive health history - The bringing together of all of the information that comprises a person’s complete medical history, today is almost too futurist a concept to be contemplated – but not quite, as we have this goal in our sight. We are laying the groundwork for a future state where such a concept will become relatively commonplace. And there will be a quantum leap in the history of mankind with respect to personal and public healthcare wherein information about a person’s physiological and health evolution will available for rapid retrieval, review, analysis and will be part of vast body of public information where new perspectives and unprecedented understanding about human physiology and evolution will emerge.
3. Information tailored for various users - Truly one of the most wonderful things about software is it adaptability, configurability and malleability for displaying context sensitive information. It can be rendered according to platform, (browser or operating system or device e.g. mobile computing device. etc.) user or any number of modifying variables. In effect giving us the beauty and elegance of mass produced data (available in 1 to N venues simultaneously) customization according to our need, desire or preference. So, the, or a, record can be opened to a view that renders the most value and efficiency as desired or required by the user.
4. Tracking the transition of care – Surely the significant magic of the electronic health record has its roots in its potential for being universally available, made possible by the immense utility of packet switching protocols, LANs, MANs and the Public Network architecture. Additionally, the chain of care, the history of ailment, morbidity, treatment and response, in an integrated format will make health care more comprehensive, efficient and effective in terms of cost and will ultimately contribute significantly to a better quality of life for the beneficiaries of these systems.
5. Patient-side management of information – This aspect is little talked about thus far, but giving patients the ability to add to and in some respects and in some areas of the record, the ability to redact and add to narrative information within their own record and health history will prove, I think, to be a significant improvement to the current health record data collection concept. Theoretically, no one has a greater interest in making the information correct, comprehensive and articulate than the individual patient or family member. This is not a given and or an absolute concept to be sure, but there is great potential for better records and significantly richer information when the patient is allowed and in fact encouraged to participate in the data collection and information management process.